Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/421

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strain in the matter of presentation of the special features. By chance two early products of American printing came to the notice of a Sunday editor. The first, published in Boston in 1656, was entitled, "Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England. Drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their souls nourishment But may be of like use to any Children. By John Cotton, B.D., late Teacher to the Church of Boston in New England"; the second, published in Cambridge in 1657, was entitled, "The Watering of the Olive Plant in Christs Gar- den. Or a Short Catechism For the first Entrance of our Chelmes- ford Children: Enlarged by A three-fold Appendix. By John Fisk, Pastour of the Church of Christ at Chelmesford in New- England."

"That's the way to write captions for our special features" was his exclamation. From that time dramatization of fact be- came the popular mode of treatment. Did a special article tell how Constantinople was freed from its plague of dogs? It bore the caption, "Constantinople No Longer a Dog Kennel." Not only were the headlines treated this way, but the practice crept into the text columns. The old essay was dramatized and made to live. "Don't preach, write a parable," was the advice given to copy-writers. Contents of the Sunday supplements became not a story that was told, but a drama that was enacted before readers. So popular was the new mode of treatment that even magazines adopted it.

Though The New York World had installed in 1893 a press capable of printing in colors and later added a larger press of the same type, both were allowed to lie idle except to put a tint now and then on a supplement page. When Don C. Seitz came to The World he urged that the color presses be used to print a comic section and Pulitzer cabled instructions of one word, "Experi- ment." Seitz "experimented." The yellow comic came when the pressman complained that "wishy-washy" tints gave no results and asked for more solid colors. R. F. Outcault had just submitted to the Sunday editor, Arthur Brisbane, who followed Goddard in that capacity, a series of "black-and-whites" which portrayed life in "Hogan's Alley." By way of experiment the "kid" in the pictures was given a robe of solid yello