The story of the Sun, New York, 1833-1918 / by Frank M. O'Brien.

282

THE STORY OF "THE SUN"

March 17, 1873-his twenty-eighth birthday-he was
made city editor, the former city editor, William Young,
having been promoted to the managing editor's desk to
take the place of Cummings, whose health was poor.
John Bogart remained at the city desk for seventeen
years of tireless work. He was a master of journalistic
detail, a patient follower-up of the stories which, like
periscopes, appear and reappear on the sea of events.
" He was a whole school of journalism in himself,"
Brisbane wrote of Bogart years afterward. " He could
tell the young men where to go for their news, what
questions to ask, what was and what was not worth
while. Above all, he could give enthusiasm to his men.
He worked by encouraging, not by harsh criticism."
Bogart always asked a young reporter whether he had
read the Sun that morning. If one confessed that he
had read only part of it, Bogart would invite him to
sit down, and would say:
" Mr. Jones, it is one of the salutary customs of this
paper that every reporter shall read everything in it
before appearing for duty. Don't even skip the advertisements, because there are stories concealed in many
of them. The Sun is good breakfast-food."
The custom of Bogart's time is the custom still, but
a reporter has to go harder at his reading than he did
in the days of the four-page Sun.
If a new reporter had not absorbed the Sun style,
Bogart gently tried to saturate him with it.
" I notice," he said to a man who had covered a little
fire the night before, "that you begin your story with
' at an early hour yesterday morning,' and that you say
also that 'smoke was seen issuing from an upper
window.'"
"Isn't that good English? " asked the young man.
"It is excellent English," Bogart replied calmly,