"How long would a couple of bundles last you?" I asked as I looked out at the window and wondered if he would reveal his circulation.
"Five issues and a little over," he said, filling his pipe from a small box on the desk.
"But you could cut off your exchanges and then it would last longer," I remarked.
"Yes, but only for one additional issue. I am very anxious to appear to-morrow, because my subscribers will be looking for a reply to what you said about me this morning. You stated that I was 'a journalistic bacteria looking for something to infect,' and while I did not come here to get you to retract, I would like it as a favor if you would loan me enough white paper to set myself straight before my subscribers."
"Well, why don't you go and tell them about it? It wouldn't take long," I said in a jocund way, slapping Lorenzo on the back. But he did not laugh. I then told him that we only had paper enough to last us till our next bill came, and so I could not possibly loan any, but that if he would write a caustic reply to my editorial I would print it for him. He caught me in his arms and then for a moment his head was pillowed on my breast. Then he sat down and wrote the following card:
Editor of the Boomerang:
Will you allow me through your columns to state that in your issue of yesterday you did me a great injustice by referring to me as a journalistic bacteria looking for something to infect; also, as a lop eared germ of contagion, and warning people to vaccinate in order to prevent my spread? I denounce the whole article as a malicious falsehood, and state that if you will only give me a chance I will fight you on sight. All I ask is that you will wait till I can overtake you, and I am able and willing to knock great chunks off the universe with you. I do not ask any favors of an editor who misleads his subscribers and intentionally misunderstands his correspondents; a man who advises an anxious inquirer who wants to know "how to get a cheap baby buggy" to leave the child at a cheap hotel; a man who assumes to wear brains, but who really thinks with a fungus growth; a man the bleak and barren exterior of whose head is only equalled by its bald and echoing interior.
Lorenzo Dow Pease.
I looked it over, and as there didn't seem to be anything personal in it, I told him I would print it for him with pleasure. He then asked that I would, as a further favor, refrain from putting any advertising marks on it and that I would make it follow pure reading matter, which I did. I leaded the card and printed it with a simple word of introduction, in which I said that I took pleasure in printing it, inasmuch as Mr. Pease could not get his paper out of the express office for a few days. It was a kindness to him and did not hurt my paper in the end.
There are many reasons why the establishment of a department of journalism at Cornell will be a good move, and I believe that while it will not take the place of actual experience, it will serve to shorten the apprenticeship of a young newspaper man and the fatigue of starting the amateur in journalism will be divided between the managing editor and the tutor. It will also give the aspiring sons of wealthy parents a chance to toy with journalism without interfering with those who are actually engaged in it.