Volume IV
Number 41
THE STATE
A Weekly Survey of North Carolina
March 13
1937
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Walter Hines Page
AS AN EDITOR IN RALEIGH
By AUGUSTUS WHITE LONG
WALTER PAGE issued in
1Ш
the prospectus of a now
weekly newspaper to l* pub¬
lished iu Raleigh and to be called
the Stale Chronicle. He thought there
»■<
room in North Carolina, not for
a better pajier, as be said, but for a
different kind of paper. And the
Chronicle was every bit of that. It
was not only a different kind of paper,
but
и
better weekly paper than any
C Wished nt that time in the Slate.
fore the advent of the Chronicle,
the brat weekly paper in the State »n,
by common consent among editor», the
Statovile Landmark, edited by Joe
Caldwell, who afterward had a brilliant
career as editor of the Charlotte Ob-
ttrecr.
When my eyes lighted on the prospec¬
tus of Page’s new paper, I became in¬
tensely interested. As one of the
editors of the University Magazine. I
had attended press conventions and
knew personally many of the editors
in the State. I was interested in Page
because I had attended a class in
Shakespeare conducted by him in one
of the summer normal schools when I
was a youngster trying to gel ready
for college. The play was Julius
Caesar. I had never read a play of
Shakespeare, but my interest was
aroused by a man of intelligence, wit,
and charm. Page opened windows in
my mind.
The "State Chronicle"
When the first i»»ue of the Chroni-
rle appeared, my pulses fluttered. Right
away I wnt down new* items from
Chapel Hill, and soon began to solicit
subscriptions. The price was $2 a
year, and I was allowed to keep fifty
cents of this amount as my pay. I
needed the money, and I was glad to
be connected with such an interesting
newspaper.
1л
ter on I was offered a
position in the office of the Chronicle.
As the paper was not a heavy divi¬
dend payer, Page could pay me only
ten dollar* a month, but he took me
into his own house and made me one
of the family. The ten dollars I re¬
ceived was ample for my other ex¬
penses. ami every day was a happy
day. There were no movies, no theater,
no baseball. I rarely smoked at that
time and I did not like soda water —so
I had no use for mouey. Such a
golden age will come no more. Page
himself sometimes stopped in at
Kraps’s thirst emporium, but not often.
He was temperate about everything
except work.
The Chronicle had but one editorial
room— a large airy room on the second
rtoor of the Edwards tc Broughton
Building, where the Chronicle was
printed.
Л*
it was only a step from
Page’s editorial room to the printing
room, the printer’s devil shuttled be¬
tween the two, taking out copy and
bringing in proof. The long unpainted
table in the middle of the room was
littered with newspapers, shears, paste
pots, copy paper, and pipes and to¬
bacco. Page smoked a light chaffy
tobacco— sometimes spoken of as al¬
falfa— in a clay pipe with a long reed-
root stem. His light-brown hair aud
inuitache were inclined to curl. Hia
drooping eyelids gave him a sleepy
appearance, but when you looked into
the dark eyes closely you saw slumber¬
ing fires. Hia manner was gentle and
the tone* of hia voice quiet, but he
bad enough fire inside of him to burn
Walter Hines Page, once an editor in
Raleigh, later U. S. Ambassador to
the Court of St. James in England.
up the world. Clothes nondescript and
without show; the only bit of color a
washable bow tic with broad red and
white stripes, worn with a white
pleated shirt. He worked in hi. shirt
slee ves, of cour*e.
His Method of Work
When the work table became com¬
pletely littered. Page cleared a SDOt
at the end and aat down, pipe nlight,
and wrote endlessly on large sheets of
thick glased brown paper, with pen
and ink, in a large bold running hand.
In later year* his handwriting became
almost microscopic. Telephones and
typewriters had not yet coine to town.
Visitors to the ofhec were few, for
(Continued on page sixteen)
