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"Some day when the skies are overcast and you're blue; when you can't seem to make your budget stretch far enough; when the best boy in the world turns out to be only an ordinary male; when you're lonesome, disheartened, weary, despairing—write to Mother Prudence, the confidanté of thousands."
Day by Day
The genesis of a newspaper story may be trivial. But good journalism develops a story until it is no longer trivial. Even if the "best" people may not approve of the methods and "effects" of certain types of journalism, credit must be given for enterprise. The Daily News (Manhattan) carries off a palm for a little story which it developed and improved day by day.
On the tenth day of January it ran a little six inch story entitled: MARY M. ROGERS, 20, WEDS COUNT, 40, AT CITY HALL and related simply that "Miss Mary Millicent Rogers . . . granddaughter of the late H. H. Rogers, one of the organizers of the Standard Oil Co., married . . . Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten, . . . member of the Belgian branch of the princely house of Salm-Salm, one of the most ancient lines of nobility in Austria."
By the next day the story had improved to "Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten, the so-called Austrian nobleman who plucked a $40,000,000 plum from the tree of Standard Oil" and at the same time multiplied five or ten times in dimensions.
By the third day, still increasing in volume, it was "Count's Gold Tinted Love." . . . "He wanted a girl with a million and he said so frankly. But while seeking the girl with a million he did not hesitate to engage himself to a widow de grace with a small competence. Nor did he scorn the beauteous proprietor of a hat shop, nor turn his countly gaze from a moving picture
star from his own part of the world..."
The following day it was "Trail O' Hearts in Count's Wake"—"Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten, fearing a breach of promise suit by Mrs. Grace Sands Montgomery Coffin, last night sent his brother, Count Salm von Hoogstraeten, to interview Mrs. Coffin."
Still later "Fumes from the Mixture of Gold and Title"—"During the two years that he [the Count] cut a wide swath in the city [Berlin] his name was constantly associated with that of some dancer, actress or other woman whose notoriety drew more attention than her talent."