The image above is a head constructed of four decks. They say | TO TIE UP WHOLE OHIO LINE | Shopmen On Strike Threaten to Prevent Running of All Trains | TRAFFIC TO BE AT A STANDSTILL | Strikers Say That No Freight or Passenger Service Will Be Possible Over the Road Affected. |
Most newspapers prefer to have the statement in each deck grammatically independent of that in the preceding deck; that is, they avoid extending a statement through two decks. How such a continuous statement is sometimes made, however, is shown in the following head from the New York Sun:
The image above is constructed of two decks. The first deck is a cross-line head in upper case which says | MORSE SAYS IT WASN’T FAIR |. The second deck is a pyramid head in two parts. The first line begins with the preposition | TO |. The head says | TO PUT HIS STORY IN THE HANDS OF GOVERNMENT AGENTS |. The full headline says | MORSE SAYS IT WASN’T FAIR TO PUT HIS STORY IN THE HANDS OF GOVERNMENT AGENTS |.
One peculiar form of headline, some of the best examples of which are found in the Cincinnati Enquirer, depends for its effect upon this continuation of a statement through several decks. Only one word is used for the first deck of large heads of this type, and only one or two in the first deck of smaller heads, as is seen in the following examples:
The image above is example | (1) | of this peculiar form of headline. It is a head with six decks. The first deck is cross-line form with the centered word | ENGINEERS | in a large, heavy-weighted, font.
The second deck is also cross-line but is mixed-case in a slightly smaller font of medium weight. It spans the full width of the column and says | Favor Lock Canal |.
The remaining four decks are all pyramid form in mixed-case and displayed in a font of similar size. They say | Work of Goethals Meets Praise of Experts, | Who, With Taft, Inspect the Panama Ditch, | And They Find Gatum Accident Was Trivial. | No Further Trouble With the Dam Is Anticipated—Plans of the President Elect. |
The complete headline reads | ENGINEERS Favor Lock Canal | Work of Goethals Meets Praise of Experts, Who, With Taft, Inspect the Panama Ditch, And They Find Gatum Accident Was Trivial. | No Further Trouble With the Dam Is Anticipated—Plans of the President Elect. |