Mr. Schneckenberger on Tuesday will have completed 42 years of service in the World-Herald composing room. He had been foreman of the Ad Department for nearly 25 years of this time. Below he tells of his experience.
William Jennings Bryan and I were “associates” on the World-Herald staff years ago. He was editor; I was Printer ‘s Devil.
He wrote his editorials in longhand and the printers set them in type. Then I would take proofs of them, so Mr. Bryan could make necessary corrections and revisions.
Whenever he wrote some especially “Heavy” Political editorials, I had my work cut out. Mr. Bryan got 50 proofs. After they got to his office, they would be sent to all prominent Democratic office holders and Politicians, for them to look at before they came out in the next day’s paper
Gets Apprentice Job
I started at the World-Herald August 17,1895. My brother Bill, a printer told me Bill McDiramid, composing room superintendent was going to hire an apprentice. I went to see him on Sunday night, to crowd ahead of the dozen or so boys who would rush ahead to apply Monday. He looked me over and thought I was pretty small. I was. “Have you any experience?” I told him I knew the cases. “How are you going to reach the ‘cap E’ box?” He wanted to know. “I always stand on a type box,” I told him. He gave me the job, I had the place littered with boxes all the time.
Proper Care For the Type
Once we got a new series of type, which was a beauty. Our foreman guarded the box carefully when it arrived, and laid it out in the cases himself. Just to make certain it got proper care, he put a sing on the case; “Do not use this type.” The printers still get a laugh out of that.
In those days, the paper only had seven columns, and the headliner sizes were allot smaller then now. During the Spanish-American War, Mr. Hitchcock decided that the front page looked a little bit dull and gray. He told the headliner writers to have each head on the evening edition front page set in a different type style. We scoured the composing room to get enough styles. The page looked like it had been copied and put back together wrong. Mr. Hitchcock chuckled when he saw it. “Let’s go back to the old style,” he said.
Makeup Rules a Pass
During the exhibition fight, Johnson suddenly reached out caught the bench with one hand and upset the whole row of writers and sportsmen. The crowd roared.
A printer has it easy at the theaters I those days. Quite a few showmen and theater owners were printers. We could go up to the box office, put down our makeup rule, and it was good as cash on the line.