--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Powers, Alfred collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 30 number: 9 published: 1927-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Powers, Alfred, “Glen Franklin Foster, Cub Reporter,” *Improvement Era* 30, no. 9 (July 1927): 814–820." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3009unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera3009unse start_page: 814 end_page: 820 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1927-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3009unse publication_year: 1927 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1927, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Glen Franklin Foster, Cub Reporter GLEN FRANKLIN FOSTER, CUB REPORTER By Alfred Powers Stepping on air because he had found a professional place in rhis lively Oregon city of twelve thousand people, Glen walked down Main Street until he came to the sign: Evening Courier. The door of the office marked "Editor" was open, showing a small, half-bald man of about forty busy at a desk. While Glen paused unobserved in the doorway, he had a chance to take in the wall decorations, which consisted entirely of four placards: "Who, What, When, Where, Why, How." "Accuracy, Ac- curacy, Accuracy." "The facts! — the color — the facta!" '1Get the news first, but first get it right." He rapped his knuckles two or three times on the door- casing and, at a curt command from the editor, stepped in and stood before the desk. "I am Glen F. Foster of Junction Center," he explained. "You wrote me you would have a job for me as reporter the first of June." "You'll get fifteen dollars a week. Report to Mr. Grimshaw, the city editor." He went down the hall and entered an unkempt room with four typewriters on as many littered desks. Duplicates of the four placards adorned the walls. It was still ten minutes to eight and the only person in the office was an angular young man with long, tousled hair, which, that early in the morning, had lost all evidence of a part. He stopped his rapid hammering of a typewriter and silently inspected Glen, through horn-rimmed spectacles. Glen had never before found such an attitude of thrift toward speech. The Courier staff, in the matter of talk, placed the burden of proof on the other fellow. The young man said nothing, but waited expectantly and a little impatiently for Glen to state his business. "I'm Glen Foster of Junction Center," he began. "Yes, you're expected," interrupted the man at the typewriter "Your desk is the one in the corner. Go out on the street ana gather items for 'Caught in the Rounds.' " With these laconic directions he returned to his typing. Glen hesitated a moment. There were many questions he wanted to ask. But he didn't ask them. He went over to the desk indicated as his, picked up the previous day's Courier that lay on the typewriter and went out. "Caught in the Rounds" was a miscellany of local news, ranging in length from two lines to two inches. Each was printed with a black-faced head that occupied from a half to three-fourths of the first line. These items took up all the reading space on one page. GLEN FRANKLIN FOSTER, CUB REPORTER 815 Where did one find such news in Grand Heights? He went into the hotel and started out his first reportorial work by sitting in a comfortable lobby chair. But he was working just the same. Those placards back there meant that he was to know exactly what he was doing. If he got excited or panicky, he was a "goner." He analyzed the items to determine the source. One told of a man dismissed from a hospital, one described the re-seeding of a burned-over area by a forest ranger, another gave the cost and size of a new rural school house. He made out a list: Hospitals, Hotels, County School Superintendent, Forestry Office, Chamber of Com- merce, Stage Terminal, and so on until he had mapped out an itinerary of twenty different places. On his way back to the newspaper office, after covering all these, he passed in front of Chandler's Hardware store just as two clerks were loading a great coil of rope into a wagon. There was so much of this and it was so heavy that the men had difficulty in lifting it over the end-gate. "That's all, Mr. Scott," announced one of the clerks, and the overalled and cotton-shirted driver, holding out his hand in signal to the cars behind, turned his horses from the curb out into the street, with a foot or so of the rope pendant behind. Glen's way paralleled the course of the wagon for a couple of blocks. As he stopped to go into the Courier office, he saw a well dressed young man on a bicycle ride up behind the wagon, catch bold of the end of the rope and then slow up. Drawing out a line of about twenty feet, he proceeded for a block in a gay spirit of horse play, the farmer driving his team and the cyclist driving the wagon. He speeded up, threw the withdrawn cordage back into the wagon bed, put his hand on the end-gate and lifted himself for a glimpse of the farmer's merchandise. Then he turned his wheel into the curb, parked it and ran afoot after the wagon, into which he climbed as it rattled behind the slow-moving horses. As the vehicle turned the corner at the next block, Glen saw the young man climbing over the back seat into a place beside the farmer. Two other reporters were at work when Glen entered. He went over to his typewriter, which was old and eccentric, and began pounding out his copy. When he was through with his regular stuff, it occurred to him that the purchase of so large a quantity of rope by the farmer was unusoial and interesting enough to deserve mention. He wrote it up in about a hundred words and took his pages over to the city editor. Grimshaw, running through the sheets, made no com- ments until he came to the last item. "Mister — Mister Scott," he cried out in disapproval. "The initials, man? This isn't the sticks. This is a daily paper. What are Scott's initials?" "I didn't get them. I — " 816 IMPROVEMENT ERA "Well, go and get them. And work fast, man. The last stuff goes to press in half an hour." In spite of his early-morning determination to be calm, he was flustered now. He was angry, too — bawled out like that before the other reporters, who, however, seemed to take no notice. Why did he go and stick that rope item in? The other stuff seemed to get by all right. That's the thanks one gets for giving full measure. Those accursed initials were gone with their owner, rattling along some country road to Twin Oaks, Cow Creek, Piney Ridge or some other rural center date-lined on the neighborhood page of the Courier. The city editor knew the initials. Of course, he knew. But a reporter was supposed to get information from everybody in town except his editor. He ran through the neighborhood page but found no Scott. His thought processes had been so muddled by his emotions that it was two or three minutes before he thought of the telephone directory. He found: Scott S B r 382 Walnut 169-y Scott Alex r R F D 1 41-F-ll Scott M H r R F D 4 13-F-15 S. B., who lived in town, was eliminated. Which of the other two was the cordage purchaser? He would call and find out. He had to wait a minute and a half while one of the reporters took data for a story. The moment the reporter was through he took possession of the telephone and called, "41-F-ll, please." "The line is out of order." "13-F-15, please." He waited a full minute while a distant ringing sounded in his ears. "What number did you call, please?" "13-F-15, please." He waited another minute or what seemed like it. Central was patient and persistent. "They do not answer." The old man was a bachelor, that was it, and hadn't got home yet. Or his family was out visiting while he came to town and he would pick them up on the way. He was logically certain that M. H. Scott, R. F. D. 4, was the rope buyer. He slipped a piece of paper in the machine and wrote: "A coil of rope that would reach from the south side of 9th Street to the north side of 10th Street was purchased today from the Chandler Hardware store by M. H. Scott, R. F. D. 4." He looked up and staring at him was the placard: "Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy." What if it wasn't M. H. Scott? He believed it was but he wasn't dead sure. He got up and put on his hat. Why hadn't he thought of the hardware store before? GLEN FRANKLIN FOSTER. CUB REPORTER 817 "Say, Joe," called the clerk of whom he made enquiry, "what are the initials of the Scott who bought all that rope a while ago?" "I don't know; first time he ever traded here." "Is he on the books?" "No, he paid cash." "Do you know which one of these he is?" asked Glen, getting the telephone directory and pointing out the two R. F. D. Scotts. "Neither one of them. Little fellows, brothers. They trade here all the time." "Do you know this Scott?" asked Glen as a last hope, pointing out the urban dweller. "It isn't he," laughed the clerk. "He doesn't drive a Bain wagon and a team of plugs. He drives a Lincoln. He's president of the Commercial Bank." Glen had only thirteen minutes left, but he hurried away to the Court House where he found the names of five more Scotts who lived in different parts of the country. The rope buyer was, no doubt, one of the five. But which one? He hastened back to the Courier office and sat down at his desk with four minutes to spare. He was determined not to concede his failure until the last minute. He picked up the Courier and held it up less in perusal than as a shield to hide his reddening face, for he had detected two inquiring looks from the city editor. His eyes glanced down the classified advertising columns and lighted on "S. S. Scott, well-driller." Eureka! Here was logic that could not fail. Who else could need so much rope? The placards could not shake his faith in this deduction. He had exactly two minutes. He inserted a half sheet and wrote as fast as he could. Then he waited till the stroke of the deadline. He wanted the city editor to think he had failed and then disappoint him. The other reporters had handed in their copy. "Time!" called Mr. Grimshaw addressing himself solely to Glen, who jerked the sheet from the machine and stepped to his desk. "Here's the rope story," he said. Scott's initials are S. S. and he's a well-driller." "Are you sure?" And Mr. Grimshaw' s stern look through his horn-rimmed glasses weakened him more than the placards. "I — I think so." "Are you sure?" demanded Mr. Grimshaw. "Mr. Grimshaw, let me explain." "All I want to know is whether S. S. are Scott's initials and whether he's a well-driller.'" "Yes," said Glen. • The city editor added the half sheet to the pile of copy on his desk. Then giving Glen another uncompromising look of judgment, he said: "That's all for today. Eight o'clock tomorrow. Better use your time getting acquainted with the town." 818 IMPROVEMENT ERA Glen went over to his desk and sat down, feeling limp and weak. What if his deduction was wrong? His first one had been. Wasn't there some way he could still verify it? Mr. Grimshaw had given the story to the linotype machines. It was not yet irrevocable but would be in a few minutes. Even if he couldn't stop printing, there was the wait, the long wait, until he knew and others knew whether he was right or wrong. Verification, one way or the other, would prepare him for the worst or clear his conscience. It would mean a lightening of his suspense — it would mean a night's sleep. As he sat there, his peace of mind gone, he remembered the cyclist. That young man would undoubtedly know the initials of the rope buyer. But who was the young man and how could he find him? Then he recalled that the men's furnishings clerk, two doors up, was out on the sidewalk at the time, watching and enjoying the comedy play. He went to the store, found the clerk and asked: "Who was the young man on the bicycle this afternoon fooling with the farmer's rope?" "Oh, that was Tom Hendricks. He's reporter for the Morning Herald. Bright — nothing gets by that fellow. Tomorrow morning he'll have a great story about that rope. Watch and see if he doesn't." Seeking solace and reassurance, this was what he found. Think- ing of his own pitiable story and the competition it would meet, he went back to the Courier office and to the desk of the city editor. "Mr. Grimshaw," he asked, "can we — can we kill that rope story?" "All locked up and on the press. Why, what's wrong? Scott's initials?" He hesitated a moment under the focus of the horn-rimmed glasses. He had tried to explain once to Mr. Grimshaw and he wouldn't let him. He probably wouldn't let him now. He would explain but he wouldn't prematurely admit straight out that he was wrong until he knew he was wrong, and, after all, he had more than a fifty-fifty chance of being right. "Did you get Scott's initials wrong?" repeated the city editor. "Yes or no?" he added uncompromisingly. "No," declared Glen doggedly. He sat down and waited for the first copies of the Courier. In a few minutes the city editor laid one on his desk. At the very last of the "Caught in the Rounds" he read: S. S. Scott Buys Rope: A coil of rope that would reach from the south side of 9th Street to the north side of 10th Street was purchased today from a local hard- ware store by S. S. Scott, Grand county well-driver. There is a constant sale of short lengths of cordage for the old oaken bucket, for hay lifts, for swings, for clotheslines and for tying trunks; but the four-hundred-foot, unsevered strand bought by Mf. Scott is the record purchase for some time. It did not escape Glen that the Scott initials were put con- GLEN FRANKLIN FOSTER, CLUB REPORTER 819 spicuously — and maliciously, he thought — in the blackfaced head. He had also written, "Chandler's Hardware Store," and here it was changed to, "a local hardware store." Sincerely in quest of information, he took the item over to the city editor. "Mr. Grimshaw," he said, "may I ask about this change o'f the hardware store wording? Isn't 'Chandler's Hardware store' more definite and more — more accurate than 'a local hardware store?' " "We're not in the sticks," declared Mr. Grimshaw. "If the hardware stores want advertising they can get it for forty cents an inch." He ate an early dinner, but it did not entirely remove that feeling of weakness in the pit of his ptomach. He got scarcely an hour's sleep all night long. His emotional vicissitudes made him cry quits forever on logic and newswriting, however inevitable it seemed. At half past five he was down in the lobby of the inexpensive hotel where he was staying until he got a boarding place. As soon as the drowsy night clerk laid down the morning paper he grabbed it up to see what kind of story the bright Tom Hendricks had written. All through four years in the Junction Center high school he had made "A's" in composition, and he hated to be scooped, as he expect- ed to be, by the superior rhetoric and imagination of the Herald reporter in the matter of the rope. But he couldn't find the story. There wasn't a single headline, large or small, that mentioned rope. After turning through the whole paper, he came back to the front page and renewed his examina- tion with greater detail. Then he turned suddenly cold, but not from the early morning chill in the lobby. Tom Hendricks hadn't bothered with rhetoric or imagination, but he had written something that waking Grand Heights and Grand county would read with flaming hopes. In the left-hand column, under a six-deck head, this is the story Glen saw: "That an oil well has been discovered on the J. K. Holmes place at Piney Ridge, 12 miles south of Grand Heights, was made known by S. S. Scott, well-driller, who told of the petroleum seepage while in town yesterday to buy additional supplies. "The Well, originally intended for water, had gone through 200 feet of • practically dry strata when Holmes ordered the driller to abandon the hole and set up his machinery in another location. The driller, hitting a slight vein of water, persuaded Holmes to go 2 5 feet deeper. The water vein gave out, but, at a depth of 220 feet, the buckets brought slight oil indications, which, though still in greatly diluted form, have grown steadily thicker. The well is now 230 feet deep. "Scott, who has only recently brought his drilling machinery into the county from Salem, is not excited about the discovery and was reluctant to discuss the finding of the oil at all in an interview with a Herald reporter yesterday afternoon. 'It's oil all right and it's getting thicker,' he said, 'but Mr. Holmes, who lost seven hundred dollars in an oil layout once, wants to know there's lots of oil and not just a dinky seepage before he makes any general announcements about it.' "No expensive apparatus will be set up, according to Scott. The shaft will be deepened with the present, cheaply operated drilling machinery until the seepage becomes a flow or peters out. "The well is located on a knoll a hundred yards west of the Holmes residence. He placed it there so as to pipe water by gravity into the house and barn. All of the butte of which this knoll is a part belongs to Holmes. 820 IMPROVEMENT ERA "There are six other buttes in the range known as Piney Ridge. These, individually or overlapping, are on the farms of J. L. Knox, George Sinclair, M. O. Forrester, Jesse Howe, Jim Applegate and B. B. Bristow." Glen read it over a second time. It was not a sensational story, but sane, cautious, guarded, as honest as Farmer Holmes himself. But more important than the way it was written was the fact that it was written at all. He saw the rope first; he saw S. S. Scott first; his paper went to press first; but here was the story in the Herald and Tom Hendricks would come down town at noon to find himself a hero. It little comforted him now that the initials had proved right. His slovenly work lay under a greater exposure. The attitude, the lack of enterprise, that had let him take a chance with the initials had lost him this big thing. (New prosperity for a town, for a county, was ready for the telling, and he had talked about a coil of rope — swings — the old oaken bucket. Statesmanship was demanded. He had responded with tiddly winks. He came into the Courier office exactly at eight, expecting to be fired and realizing that he deserved it. Mr. Grimshaw, who this morning had little segments of a part in his hair, was at his desk. "Foster," he said, "handle 'Caught in the Rounds' again today. It's well to brighten up the itemsi now and then with little features like the rope story. But don't let the tail wag the dog." "Spencer," he directed another reporter, "get a Yellow Cab and go out to the J. K. Holmes place on Piney Ridge. Three columns by one o'clock." Portland, Oregon NOTES ON LINDBERGH By B. H. Roberts Yes; being in New York City when Lindbergh arrived in the World's Metropolis, I ventured into the crowded throngs to get a gimpse of him, and I did; but it was only a glimpse. First, about three-quarter front view, changed instantly to profile; a moment later, the back head as he sat perched upon the folded top of the automobile in which he rode. Just a glimpse, but it confirmed all that has been said about the modesty and charm of the present World Hero. I was glad to see him, because it enabled me to compare the impressions of sight with the thoughts I have had of him and his achievements — achievements which confirm the old truth that "Peace hath her victory no less than that of War," and it is good to be able to celebrate achievements that make for greatness without the dreadful horror of National or World Wars. Among the things that have challenged my wonderment in all this Lindbergh business has been the amount of splendid writing that it has produced in the daily press. It is astonishing what impetus