If other American newspapers would allow their cleverest writers the same latitude of doing signed work in poetry and prose, we should soon have a very encouraging group of distinctive and virile American writers. Eugene Field was, perhaps, the only American man of letters using the term in its broad sense, and not restricting it especially to the writer of merely funny or political work, who has won fame in literature through the medium of a newspaper. This is high praise for the Record as well as a monument of achievement for Field, which only those in the harassing harness of journalism can properly appreciate. At the close of his career, of course, Field was published in books and magazines, but he won his reputation in the Record.
Why do not some other proprietors of large newspapers give other young American writers of originality and talent a show, instead of giving the public nothing in the way of literature but syndicate matter by English writers who crop up everywhere? If the newspaper publishers and editors took to producing literary men of their own, and were not content to get out a newspaper that tallies with every other in every town from Maine to Frisco, we should soon find that a rich streak of spontaneous, fresh talent would be struck in this country.
Those early “Plain Tales from the Hills” were fine, and “The Light that Failed,” and the rest showed that in Kipling we had a man of virile force, great observation and picturesque power. But it seems to one who looks for the sense of permanence in an artist’s choice of subjects and style of treatment that the furore over the “Jungle Stories” is simply the exaggeration that is meted out to every established literary favorite in a mere strain for novelty. There is nothing really permanent about this literary twist of investing the wild beasts with human traits and speech, and although it is doubtless well done, it does not support the contention of some critics that Kipling is the most significant and robust writer in English today. This is not denying Kipling’s universally acknowledged abilities, it is merely pointing out that he is striving more for immediate effect than for the substantial art that would insure his place in the great body of standard English literature.
A Good Cause
Needs a good writer to support and advocate and present it.
A Bad Cause
Needs a better writer to make it appear as good as the best.
A writer of experience, ability and versatility is desirous of finding employment in some journalistic capacity. He prefers to advocate a damnably bad cause for good wages than a good one for bad. Address,
Hardup, care Fly Leaf.