The Style of Special Articles. The style and manner of treatment of the feature story deserve careful consideration. Simple, concrete expression, free from technical or learned terms except when they are fully explained, is always desirable. Specific examples serve most effectively to bring home to the reader a general principle and its application. To lead from these concrete illustrations to generalizations is to follow the natural order of inductive reasoning. Furthermore, the story-like character given to an article by an incident or anecdote at the beginning catches the reader’s attention and interests him at once. Striking statistics in the opening sentence may have a similar effect, although, of course, they lack the “human interest” of the story form. A vivid bit of description is sometimes used to advantage at the beginning. Exposition by narrative methods throughout the article is popular because of the story form thus given to the subject. If, instead of merely describing and explaining a mechanical process, the writer portrays men actually performing the work involved in the process, he adds greatly to the interest of the article. The effectiveness of an explanation of a new surgical operation can be increased to a marked degree by picturing a surgeon as he performs the operation upon a patient at a clinic. The method of procedure and the benefits under a workingmen’s compensation act are best made clear by telling the experiences of several typical workingmen and their families who have come under the operation of the law. Every legitimate literary device for catching and holding the reader’s attention may be employed to advantage.
How a current event, in this instance the opening of a trial, gives opportunity for an interesting feature article explaining the situation, picturing vividly the persons involved, and developing the “human interest” element in the case, is well illustrated in the following story written by a correspondent of the New York Tribune:
Union City, Tenn., Dec. 13.—Clad in rough homespun, with ragged trousers tucked deep into cowskin boots innocent of polish, with straggling beards and huge slouch hats, but always with the inevitable long barrelled rifle or big pistol in plain view, the denizens of the Reelfoot Lake region are assembling in this quaint little town to-night for the opening scene to-morrow of the Night Rider trials.
They are friends and relatives of the men who are held under military guard at the barracks. They ignore the townspeople, or look at them with scowls. When they meet one another a silent nod or a whispered word is all that passes. Silently and singly they wander through the streets, or stand for hours outside the barracks, gazing curiously up at the windows of the room in which their friends are held incommunicado. Sometimes they approach the trim young sentries on guard, taking careful inventory of the glistening bayonets and rifles.
They feel keenly this trouble, these rough but simple men of the Tennessee backwoods. They believe that they are persecuted and that the entire world is against them. “Old Tom” Johnson, who, the state says, was the first leader of the band, but was deposed because his immense stature and huge hand easily identified him, expresses the belief of most of them when he says:
“It’s like this heah, stranger. God, He put them red hills up theah. An’ He put some of us pooh folks, that he didn’t have no room foh nowheah else, up theah, too. An’ then He saw that we couldn’t make a livin’ farmin’, so He ordered an earthquake, an’ the earthquake left a big hole. Next He filled the hole with watah an’ put fish in it. Then He knew we could make a livin’ between farmin’ and fishin’. But[Pg 231] along comes these rich men who don’t have to make no livin’, an’ they tell us all that we must not fish in the lake any mo’, ’cause they owns the lake an’ the fish God put theah foh us. It jus’ nachally ain’t right, stranger; it ain’t no justice.”
This is the Night Riders’ original view, but the primary object of the band was forgotten by many, officers say, and the organization began to use its persuasion to vent the personal spites of members and to regulate private affairs of many persons for miles around.
For instance, merchants whose total sales did not exceed $2 a day were ordered to sell goods at cost, plus 10 per cent profit; tenants of farms were ordered to pay no cash rent, but to insist on working the ground on shares; growers of grain or tobacco were ordered to plant only so many acres of soil; landlords were bidden by advertisement not to lease their property for cash rents. A woman who had left her drunken husband was ordered to return to him, and when she refused she was taken to the woods, stripped, tied to a tree and lashed with a cat-o’-ninetails until her back and shoulders were one big wound. Other women, fond of pretty clothing, were told to cease wearing it. And every case of refusal to comply instantly was followed by a visit of the black-masked crew, a swift, violent seizure of the recalcitrant, a rapid ride to the depths of the forest and an awful whipping.
For nearly two years these terrors of the wilderness rode nightly. For two years no man not a member ever retired to rest without breathing a silent prayer that he and his family be spared the terrors of a midnight visitation.
Then the riders extended their operations. They began to visit the larger towns, such as Troy, Dyersburg, Union City. This extension was followed by the murder of Captain Quentin Rankin. Finally the people became enraged, the Governor interfered, and in frenzy many persons said: