Show WINCHELL RECALLS PIONEER By iv WALTER ALTER WINCHELL When Broadway Was a Wilderness When you peer back through the files you find out that the life of a columnist is rarely a long one In 1924 when this upstart was transported from in front of the Palace theater to a tabloid rookery in city hall hail place the town was crawling with ace para- para only three of whom survive survive four four when F. F P. P A. A resumes next week Those columnists are Broun Bugs Baer and Hi Phillips of ot the Telly Journal and Sun Sun The others were weeded out by mergers the Grim Reaper or left for better incomes elsewhere A few of them walked The Boss' Boss Plank In those columnists days das each of the he pillars was somebody's specialty specially special special- ty ly and the neighbors kept their paws off The reason for that was the readers wouldn't stand for an imitation This newcomer who shook In his hoofing shoes in awe of all the 1924 figured the only way to fight extinction was to prepare his his' oWn own menu menu and f let ft t the other fellows fellow's fellows fellow's fel id- lows low's best dishes alone Broadway Broadway Broadway Broad Broad- way was unexplored copy land and besides it was the only area he knew That's why he be e glommed onto it Bernadine Szold had skimmed the night clubs by listing the chumps seen there in a weekly piece for forThe forThe forThe The News This was was' was the the acreage Mark Hellinger Bellinger inherited in 1925 1923 one year after we began for The In 1926 Mark started his daily history of Broadway Broadway Broadway Broad Broad- way two-timers two and drunks S. S J. J Kaufman of whom it has often been erroneously reported that he gave birth to the Broadway column plan didat didn't He sometimes sometimes sometimes some some- times made room for a squib in his Round The Town spot in inthe the tle Mall Telly-Mall but he took in much more territory including Europe Most ost of ot the crack columnists were on The Morning World F. F P. P A. A with his dally daily rations of crisp paragraphs paragraphs paragraphs para para- graphs and swell verse a lot of It his lila own led the field and set the pace for all columnists in burgs Broun was doubling as drama critic and conductor of ot It Seems To Me Mc T Th p personal touch was sUU sUll a novelty r Some of the t of Brouns Broun's I F 1 pieces came caine cattle back bacle to him bins with the personal pronoun In red ink and- and the margins covered with insults If It you said we it showed modesty but I was considered considered considered con con- going uptown on the reader Is the people The Sunday World bulged with columnists Lawrence Stallings who also did a daily stint on books had a reserved booth So did Frank Sullivan and Karl K Kitchen who were doing weekly pieces Milt Gross was teaching the town the Bronx dialect with his Looie Dot Dope series Lloyd Mayer was riding high with his first of the flapper talk the series called Between Us Girls Ring Lardner's syndicated articles articles ar ar- ar- ar tides appeared in the same gazette His special yarns on fights world series games etcetera were masterpieces of satire wit and fun Gosh how bow he is he-is L missed There was a whole colony of commentators commentators com corn on the Trib too too Don Marquis was filling his inch 23 depth which he called his grave every with screamers about Archie The Old Soak etc ete Percy Hammond the drama critic fashioned fashioned fashioned fash fash- paragraphs about everything He called them Oddments and Remainders on the days he had no shows to report It was big time stuff Burton Rascoe parented the first of the grab columns in that paper His Daybook a Sabbath Sabbath Sabbath Sab Sab- bath stunt related all about who was hating whom among the set and what made a certain author authora a dirty dog Bugs Bug litter Bar was In The American alone in his field field field-as as he Is Js now Bugs was saved from th the copy copycats cats because his pace is too fast for most of them Which probably probably probably ably explains why he has lasted so long At that time The American American Amer Amer- ican ran Roy K Moulton's paragraphing paragraphing para para- graphing broad comments on the news of the day the sort you see unsigned on editorial pages A whole hatful of columnists had been merged into the employ of ol The Sun Phillips was switched with the Globe franchise and A. A was Inherited when Publisher Publisher Pub Pub- lisher usher Munsey married the Herald to the Tribune Mr was of course the drama butcher but like Hammond he be devoted his Idle days day to some of the entertaining chatter that was eventually to make him rich as Town Crier and mag raconteur The Post ha had Christopher Morley If the old memory tank Is reliable he called his chore The Bowling Green but not not Tenny- Tenny rate It was all very scholarly anc and litree and had a 8 clientele all if Its if own a Russel Crouse Grouse we we- think wa was s a Post The Th Morning Telegraph was the columnists columnist's paradise para para- dise disc Seemingly they had nothing else Rennold Wolfe not riot long dead then had established the tradition tradition tra tra- tra- tra of a crackle or a wheeze in every paragraph and a lot of his able colleagues were trying to make the quota Various talented scribblers took tooka Beau Broadway a whirl at doing so so-it so it was rarely the same day ater after after af af- a- a ter day There used to be a tale that the last one out of ot the car barn where it was published was stuck with the colin colm And this is news and a confession at the same time We wrote Beau Broadway anonymously on Sundays Sundays Sundays Sun Sun- days for tor two years years guess when f IJ |