On Being a Country Editor

Thoughts of an Author Who Has Recently Begun to Publish a Small Town Weekly

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

EDITOR'S NOTE:—To revise the old definition, when an author bites an editor, or an editor bites an author, that is not news; but when an author bites himself and becomes an editor, that is news. Hence, Sherwood Anderson is now, more than ever, "news", by virtue of his simultaneous purchase of the Republican and Democratic newspapers of the small town of Marion, Virginia. However his own news value may once have repelled Mr. Anderson as an author, he must now, as an editor, at least understand it. As the non-partisan balance of power in the (suddenly) conspicuous town of Marion, Mr. Anderson will edit both papers in every way except—as his prospectus points out,—politically. It will print local church news, social news, reports of sports, births, deaths, farm prices, "who gets hurt during the fall threshing, or shoots some fellow for getting gay with his wife." His national audience must wish Mr. Anderson every possible success in this, his latest enterprise

THERE is a little alleyway back of the shop. From the window where I sit writing I can, by turning my head slightly, see into the court house yard and to the post office door.

The post office is the town gathering place. The morning mail from the east comes in just after eight o'clock. Men begin to gather at about that hour. Back of the glass front of the post office the clerks are at work distributing the mail.

I see the prominent men of the town gathered. There is the judge, three or four lawyers, the merchants, the bankers. This is a Virginia town. These people have not moved about much. Not many new people have come in. As yet, I feel a little strange here.

There is a poor, bedraggled woman in the alleyway. She has two small children with her. The children look half starved. They are picking up bits of coal and wood and putting them in a basket. Presently she and her children will go home and build a fire. They will huddle about it. The morning is cold.

Thoughts drifting in a man's mind. Mountains rise up out of this valley in all directions. The valley is broad and rich. Ever since I have been in this valley, I have been reading every book I could find about the life here. Everyone knows that Virginia is one of our oldest states. In the early days, when all eastern and central Virginia had already been settled for a long time, this country remained untouched.

THERE was the country east of the mountains. The whites had that. Then came the Blue Ridge Range. Beyond that another range, the tail end of the Appalachians, trailing down across Virginia and into North Carolina.

A rich country of little upland valleys. There was a great salt lick at Roanoke and another near us, at Saltville. Game was abundant. In all of this country, blue grass grows naturally. It is wonderful for fattening stock. During the spring, summer and fall months, thousands of fat cattle and sheep are driven down through our main street to the railroad yards.

Before the white men got over the mountains and into these valleys, all of this country was the happy hunting ground of the Indians. None of the tribes lived here, but the Shawnees, the Chickasaws, the Mingos, even the Indians from Ohio and New York state came here to hunt.

Then the white hunters came, Daniel Boone and the others. They went back over the mountains telling great tales. Settlers came. Each settler picked out his own little valley and built his cabin.

Great land companies were formed to exploit the country. George Washington got in on that. The English governor owed him something for his services during the French and Indian War. George knew how to take care of himself in a financial way. The early settlers in the little valleys had to fight the Indians for their lives on the one hand, and fight it out with the great speculative land company for the very soil under their feet.

An independent people, full of personality. The town has not yet had the problem of assimilating foreign born citizens.

Everyone knows everyone else. Their fathers were known and their grandfathers. A new comer like myself—I have been in this country only three years—sees the change going on here that has gone on all over America.

Presently there will be more factories. Labor is plentiful and can yet be bought at a low price. That, in the end, will bring the factories.

The drama of a small town always unrolling before the eyes. Now a crier comes out and calls from the court house steps. Court is about to go into session.

It is a case involving mountain people. I go over there. Courts have always frightened me a little. Formerly, when I lived in Chicago, I knew a good many newspaper men. They went freely into the courts, even into the judge's chamber. They spoke freely to the judge. "Hello, Jim", they said.

AND there was the sheriff. I have always been afraid of sheriffs. It may be that every writer is instinctively afraid of being arrested. I was arrested once. That was up in Ohio. A sheriff picked me up as a diamond thief. He took me off to a police court. Two or three men in uniform gathered about and began hurling questions at me. I stood trembling. What a queer feeling of guilt.

Now, I go into our court room freely. The sheriff and the judge smile at me. Behold, I am a power in the land. I own a newspaper. I even go into the sheriff's office. He and I have a cigarette together.

In the court room outside country people are gathered. They are afraid in the presence of the law, as I was once afraid. A court official is telling me about his daughter, who has got a prize in school. I know what he wants. He is proud of his daughter. He wants that put in the paper. It will go in.

In the court room I can go into the sacred precincts inside the bar. How brave I am. These days I feel as I did when I was a boy and got a job tending race horses. What did I care about wages? I could consort shoulder to shoulder with the great, with horsemen.

I walked beside drivers of race horses, touched their elbows.

The witness on the witness stand is lying. He is a small boy. His father and his uncle have had a fight. One has haled the other into court. The fight took place on a country road, just as evening was coming on. The men threw rocks at each other.

The boy has been told a story he must repeat in court. What a ridiculous story. He is swearing that his father stood just so, beside the road. The uncle came along the road, swearing. He threw rocks at the boy's father. The father stood like a statue beside the road. He did not throw any rocks until he had been hit twice. What an amazingly gentle, patient mountain man. Now the lawyers are asking the boy searching questions. He is confused. The colour leaves his face. His hands grip the chair in which he sits. I know how the boy feels. He feels as I used to feel when I went into court—before I became an editor and, therefore, brave.

Frightened country people gathered in the court room. Presently their turn will come. What a terrible thing is the law.

I am glad I am not a lawyer. I am a newspaper man.

A BROTHER newspaper man has come in. He runs another weekly newspaper in a neighboring town. I have become part of a vast brotherhood. We talk of the cost of getting out a newspaper; how to make the merchants advertise more than they do. Advertising is the breath of our nostrils.

The newspaper man has gone out. After all, running a country weekly is not running a newspaper. In our hearts, we country editors know that. We are not after news. If anyone wants news, let them take a daily. We are after the small events of small town people's lives.

The country newspaper is the drug store: it is the space back of the stove in the hardware store; it is the farm house kitchen.

There was a man on a grey horse went along a mountain road one day last week. Farmer Cooper was in a distant field and could not make out the rider of the grey horse. He has been bothered ever since. "Ma, who do you suppose it was?" Now he has his weekly copy of our paper. He is sitting in the kitchen, reading.

Aha, there it is. "Ed Barrow, from up Sugar Ridge way, rode his grey horse into town on Wednesday of last week. He reports a fine bunch of steers to sell."

An old colonel with a grey beard comes into the office and takes a chair near my own. His hands tremble. In the Civil War he was a Reb. Once there was a raid of Union troops down into this country. There was a battle over near Saltville, just across Walker's Mountain from where we are sitting now.

The old man describes the battle, in which he took part as a young soldier. It was getting toward the end of the war. The Colonel was but a boy then. All of the men of this section had gone off to join Lee before Richmond. Grant was pounding away at Lee during those days. It was near the end of things.

(Continued on page 92)

(Continued from page 70)

And a battle here—in this quiet place. Old men and boys rushing to the Stars and Bars. Who knows, my own father may have been along on that raiding party. They were trying to get up to Norfolk and Western Railroad, to tear it up. Stealing chickens on the way, too.

Old men and boys rushing through the hills, the Colonel among them. He describes the battle in the hills; the driving off of the Yanks. It takes an hour to tell. It is a good story. Well, no hurry. We country editors have no dead line. If we do not get to press today, we will go to press tomorrow. After the Colonel leaves, leaning heavily on his cane, a heavy-faced woman with a determined jaw comes in.

She wants a piece put in the paper. She had two sons. One of them was killed last year in a railroad accident. With several other boys he was in a Ford. There was moon whiskey in the Ford. The driver was reckless. He drove before an on-coming train at a grade crossing and two boys were killed.

The boy's mother has written a piece about the boy. She says he was a good boy and feared God. "I hope", she says in the piece, "that what has happened to Harry will be a warning to his brother, Zeb." Evidently Zeb is a bit out of hand, too.

"Will you print it?" she asks. Surely, we will.

She is followed by a shy, fair maiden in a blue dress.

The maiden also has something to put in the paper. She hands it to me and goes out. I look at the paper. "Miss Ruby Small of Carrollville was in town Tuesday to get her teeth fixed."

Well, well, Ruby, are you having trouble with your teeth, and you so young, too.

There is no question, the dentists of this town should do more advertising in our paper.

Night. Your country editor walks about his town. He belongs to the great brotherhood of the ink pots. He does not have to rush like the city newspaper man, nor does he need to he high toned and literary, like your magazine editor.

Your country editor is thinking up schemes. He is trying to think how to make the merchants of his town advertise more. He thinks of that for a time, and then thinks of his town.

More and more he is growing familiar with it. The threads of its life run through his fingers. He knows, 0, what does he not know?

And the people of the town, knowing what he knows, a little afraid, keep passing and looking at him. He is just a little outside their lives. He is something special. He writes. That alone sets him apart.