St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 8, 1914

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Me ican methods in Paris, VOL. 66. NO. 200. §T _LouIs, SUN DAY MORNIN G, MARCH 8, 1914. Noted Paris Editor Contrasts Newspapers “ America With Those of t e French Capital “Vou give too much importance to the record of the day’s events, which are really cf little or no interest, entertainment and enjoyment of your readers through the dissemina. tion of good literature and high-class fiction, the Journal, which has a daily circulation of 1,290,000. and not enough to the cultivation, a? says Paul Reboux of By HENRY N. HALL, A Special Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch. NEW YORK, March 7. AUL Reboux of Le Journal is a typical French journalist. First and foremost, a man of letters, versatile and brilliant, he is ready at any moment to dip his pen in gall or in the milk of human kindness, as occasion may dic- tate. As a literary critic he has few equals, but he rose to fame less by the value of his criticisms than by the originality of their presentment. He is a caricaturist who uses prose and verse as a means of expression instead of pencil or brush. Other critics will go over an .author’s work, pointing out the strong and weak points. Not so Reboux.-~He writes something so closely follow- {ng his victim's style that at first glance you rec- ogtlize it, but as you read on you see every defect magnified tenfold. With infinite art he brings home to you the empti- be judged. Now, in Paris we have no editorial pages properly so called, but a great deal of edi- torial writing is presented both in the literary features and in the news. “But to get back to the value of news. Can you, with all your newspaper experience, sit down and write out a synopsis of the local news of the first week of February? That is only one month ago and 99 per cent of what happened is of no earthly interest to anybody. It was just printed in re- sponse to an artificial hunger which American newspapers themselves have created. But when it comes to reporting some really notable event, it is done much better and much more graphically by our French readers. “Take the funeral of Paul Deroulede the other day. We printed about three and a half columns, but it was a pen picture, drawn by a master hand, and it will live for years in the memory of bun- dreds of thousands of ness of Racine’s verse or shows you how be Jabored is Zola’s realism. We drifted from a discussion of French literature to talking about French news- papers and comparing them with those printed fn this country. Mr. Reboux said: “Of course, I believe that our French papers are the best in the world, and I base my belief on the rather, prosaic fact that they have by far the largest circulation. An _ at- tempt has heen made to introduce your s0- called up-to-date Amer- The “Ideal” cent ead | sixteen least, fiction. go. bad habit. but it has hardly met with the success some people expected: “Le Matin is run very much on American lines. In its handling of news, in its makeup and by all the tests of row of hooks in as Editor Reboux Would Have Ii. ¥4 A the present cost of white paper twelve pages is all the public can expect for one the limit. At least four pages should be devoted to literature; by that I mean editorials, special articles, in- terviews, and last but by no means Three pages should suffice for printing all the news, but of course the ugly, uniform and wasteful Feadlines would have to They are a habit, and a very It is absurd to believe - that every day from ten to twenty items of news should be worth ex- actly the same display.and that they should hang from the tops of the columns like legs of lamb from the —PAUL REBOUX. readers who, from every nook and corner of France, were enabled to follow Deroulede to his grave in spirit if not in person. There is very rarely more than. one big event worthy of such treat- ment in a day; some times there is none. But that one thing which people want to read about should be presented not necessar- ily with an array of cold and detailed fact, but so as to sway the reader. “Your American re- porter is not really dramatic, nor tragic. He does not appeal strong enough to the emotions. He can state a startling fact in very. few words at the be- ginning of an article, but this is reflected in the headlines. But that is, after all, the crudest form of sensationalism. Newspaper pages should be a butcher shop.” Ameérican standards it is as nearly perfect as money can make it. Vast sums have been spent in advertising it and everything that ingenuity could devise has been done to build up a circulation. And yet it only bas what I may call an ‘American’ circulation— a circulation that would be considered large in America, but which is small as compared with that of the other Paris journals. It does not sell more than about 600,000 copies a day, whereas Le Journal sells 1,200,000, and there are several other papers printing more than a million copies a day. . New York’s Mere Newspapers. 66 RANKLY, the most disappointing thing F about New York has seemed to me to be. its newspapers. In reading them here I begin to understand what has always been a mystery to me: _“How, with a population of more than 5,000,000 people in New York and a city as big as Phila- delphia, with another 2,000,000 people, within two hours, the circulation of New York papers shonld be only from one to four or five hundred thou- sand. The reason is that your papers are nerely newspapers, designed to give local information at @ glance, instead of providing food for your read- ers’ minds to entertain and amuse their leisure hours. , “Then on Sundays you deluge your readers with _ @ mass of special articles and features »nd comic illustrations that it is entirely beyona the reader to digest. On week days a man can read «Jl the newspapers printed in New York in less than an hour, but on Sundays any one of them is about as long as the average man can read in three hours, and that is about as long as the average man can reafl comfortably. In France we don't have special Sunday editions, but we give our readers, every day in the week, some nourishing literary food along with the record of daily hap- penings. And it is the literary food that is the most important, even from a business point of view, because no daily paper which is merely a newspaper can hope to get a big circulation any- where.” — News Only Individual. 66 . ELL,” I ventured, “people here seem W think it is the news that is the principal thing.” Mr. Reboux smiled and said: “Naturally, American newspapers know their own business best, but judging from our experi- ence in Paris, news is entirely secondary as a circulation pa A big reward awaits the man It can never. take the place of high literary skill. I don’t mean that ¢ in an unkind way and I don’t doubt there are plenty of men who have the ability; in fact I see glimpses of it in some of your Sunday papers and in your magazines; but there is nothing printed in American newspapers to com- pare with the articles Anatole France wrote for L’Echo de Paris. But that, of course, was like having Shakspeare on the staff of a newspaper. Literature and Circulation. ‘66 UT to show you just what effect litera- R . ture has on circulation. Twenty years ago, the Gil Blas had the best literary talent. Then L’Echo de Paris took some of their best men, and about the time Anatole France’s articles appeared the circulation rose in a few months from 30,000 to 350,000. Then Le Journal came along, and from the first it has always sub- ordinated unimportant current news to the excel- lence of its literary features. Out of the mass of contributions we receive and all that our own staff of really famous men of letters can pro- duce, we only publish the best and the best was picked out for years by a member of the French Academy. “Of course, this literary excellence is not car- ried into the news articles. The daily record of accidents and crimes, the doings of public men and of the legislatures and the courts can all be told in a few short paragraphs. We lament the lack of literary skill with which these things are reported, but to us the great thing is to tell the facts in as few words as possible. “That policy has been steadily adhered to and our circulation grows steadily every year. I be- lieve that a daily paper should be a great deal more than a newspaper, that every line of it should be worth reading and that anything that does not come up to that standard should be paid for as advertising. An account of a social func- tion which is of importance only to the hostess should be paid for in just the same way as we exact payment for publishing the fact that such and such actress owes her youth and beauty to the use of so-and-so’s face cream. “There is one other thing, however, to which | attribute the Journal's success. It has no politics. It never takes in public affairs. It does not tell its readers what to do or what not to do. It never scolds them, nor tries to uplift them, nor to tell them how they should vote, nor whom they should love, nor whom they should hate. _It reflects the thoughts of great as well as the deeds of little men.. To a record of passing events it adds an interpretation of a lasting national life.- In addition to the news of the day it strives to give its readers a literary treat of com- pelling excellence. ‘If this were France and Le Journal were print- ed in New York, we should expect to sell at least 200,000 copies every day in Philadelphia” —_ Ce ee ee ~- om Py FS ll TER tlt CBE PAOLA AAA A A CEE EB i p00 0 THAT MAN Has VILL The Extraordinary Story of the Rise of a Bandit Who laken All Northern Mexico From — Outlaw of Mountains, Hero of Legends. Hundreds Flock to His Distrustful of Friends, He Cloaks All His Plans in Greatest Mystery Confiscates Property of Rich, Issues Own Money and Gives Part to Poor By John S. Reed, A Special Correspondent of the Sunday Post-Dispatch. EL PASO, Tex., March 7. STOUT, heavy Mexican, with a mustache, A dressed in a soiled brown suit, his shirt collar open at the throat, was kicking mules. Just outside of Chihuahua a troop train stood on a siding, loading animals, guns and sol- diers for the advance on Torreon. Ragged men with big sombreros and cartridge belts crossed over their breasts climbed to the roofs of the freight cars, carrying their blankets and rifles. Vaqueros herded bunches of ponies between the tracks, shouting and whirling their lassos. Dust rose in thick clouds. The soldiers called to one another, grinning: “Oyga, companeros, now we’re going to knock down a few coloraditos! Poco tiempo California!”’ Hundreds of peddlers, selling pine nuts, cig- arettes, bottles of goats’ milk, colored handker- chiefs, whined their raucous cries. The jam, the heat, the dust were terrible. I had just come from the splendid antercom of the Governor’s palace, where I had stood, hat in hand, with many officials, capitalists, promoters and Generals, for some hours, in the vain hope of seeing Gov. Fran- cisco Villa. I watched the big man as he drove the mules into the stock car. A big hat sat on the extreme rear of his head. His mouth hung open gener- ously, and from it issued a perfect stream of mule ( driver’s maledictions. He was covered with dirt. The sweat poured down his face. He would head a mule up the gangplank—and the mule would in- variably balk. “Chingado! - Vamos hijo de la!” the big man would bellow, kicking the mule violently in the stomach. The animal would snort and gallop up the runway. Finally all the mules were loaded in that car. The driver put his shoulder to the door and crashed it shut. Then he wiped his fore- head. “Amigo!” yelled he to a passing soldier. “Give us a little drag.” The man produced a canteen, which the other up-ended. “Hey!” cried the soldier. ‘‘You needn’t drink it all!” The big inan finished the last drop and handed it back, grinning. ‘Go over to the river and say you have my permission to fill it up again.” | His forehead and turned-up nose were so boyish and his grin so good-natured that I spoke to im. . “They’re sending a good many troops,’ I said. “It looks as if Villa’s going to attack Torreon right away.” He turned around and I was looking into a pair of hard, staring, round brown eyes set in whites slightly bloodshot from much exposure to wind and sun. Sends “Friend” for Nature. “W HAT do you think about it?” he said. “Well,” I answered, “I think that there won’t be much fighting after you fellows take Torreon.” “Oja-la!” he ejaculated, suddenly serious. ‘‘Let’s hope so!”’ He looked around at the preparations for a minute without speaking. “Oyga amigo!” he shouted to a soldier who stood sentinel with his rifle at the end of the train. ‘Say, friend, go and tell Gen. Natera to come here for a min- ute.” The man shouldered his gun and slouched out of sight. I said to myself: “This is either a joke or that fellow’s got his nerve. Imagine an American private soldier sending for a General that way!” In a few minutes the young, slender figure of Gen. Natera, in a khaki uniform, swung around the corner of the car. the big, dirty man, saluted and said: you wish, my Gen. Villa?” a Villa had then been Governor of Chihuahua about two weeks. Exactly eight months before, on April 20, he had crossed the Rio Grande with two men, a pound of salt, two pounds of sugar and a kilo of coffee as his entire outfit, with which to attempt the conquest of Mexico. Carranza had lifted his voice in noble protest in the State of Coahuila, and summoning the peons from his immense haciendas, had gone to war like any medieval baron at the head of his retainers. Lucio Blanco had entered the State of Tamaulipas on a heroic white horse, and, driving his sword into the ground, had publicly taken possession of the land in the name of his Lord, the New Free Republic of Mexico. The agent of Maclivio Herrera had taken the field in Southern Chihuahua. Urbina, first Gen- eral to declare war against Huerta, had already roused his faithful State of Durango, and whipped a Federal garrison in Guanecevi. All over the republic revolution burst forth Only Northern Chihuahua slept uneasily under the immense Federal army that garrisoned the capital and every town of importance. Villa recruited in the. mountains near San Andres, Hundreds flocked to his standard. His ' “What did He marched right up to} spontaneously. : Standard Latest Pictures of Viffa and His Wife and Fac- Simife of His Signature ~~ c aS KG 1G i e- : — ——— Fo io) e = PRD . wits ee ‘ Wy @ ALEXANDER & GREEN EZ Reve TEXAS aGEN. FRANSISCO NILLA.. personal following in the north was tremen- dous. During the long years of his outlawry, a half mythical, wholly heroic legend had grown up around his name. The goat herds War FRANCO camping on the hills at wtbees night sang around their fires interminable ballads about the romantic deeds of Pancho Villa, Friend of the Poor. He was the Mexican Robin Hood. Suspicious Even of Friends. VEN in the field among hundreds of men E who would die for him, Villa trusted no- body. His desperate years of flight had taught him that, and the trips he had made across country, with a price on his head, travel- ing half the night with one faithful companion— and then dismissing the companion and riding until morning to get away from him. He never told a soul in the army his plans until he gave the order at the last minute. No one knew what Villa would do next. At night, when the army arrived at a camping place, Villa would throw the reins of his horse to a soldier, take his serape on his arm and go off to sleep alone in some hidden place in the hills. In the middle of the night he would suddenly ap- pear to some outpost in exactly the opposite di- rection, miles away. And a sentinel caught nap- ping he killed on the spot with his revolver. By the beginning of May Villa had taken Querrero and Temosachic. Herrera was in Par- ral and Urbina was master of Jiminez and Ma- pimi. Durango City fell soon after, and Urbina made a desperate and unsuccessful attack on Tor- reon, where the fighting continued without inter- ruption for 11 days. It was agreed among the revolutionary chiefs that upon the taking of Torreon, Venustiano Carranzo should be solemn- ly inaugurated Provisional President of the Mex- ican republic and that Villa should ~ commander in chief. Orozco the Intriguer. EN. MERCADO, Federal Military Governor G of Chihuahua, alarmed at the sight of a whole State in arms, concentrated his forces of 5000 well-armed and disciplined troops in Chihuahua City. Villa audaciously attacked him there with about 3000 ragged, badly armed volun- teers, but was repulsed. The elated Federals sallied out after him, but Villa turned around on them at Mapula, and with a beaten force drove them back with slaughter to Chihuahua. Then Gen. Pascual Orozco arrived from Mexico City with reinforcements of 2000 men for Mercado. The indefatigable Villa slipped north and tried to cut the railway line between Juarez and Chihuahua, but was routed at Ran- cheria. The arrival of Orozco, with his disreputable lieutenants, Rojas and Salazar, his lawless sol- diers, accustomed to unlimited loot and rapine, his personal ingolence and insubordination, was a fatal blow to the Federal cause in the north, al- ready weakened by Mercado’s indecision and in- competence. ‘The Orozquistas spread terror through Chihua- hua, violating women and exacting money from peaceful citizens. Orozco refused point-blank «to obey Mercado’s orders and intrigued to become d From His Latest Photograph. Governor of Chihuahua in his place. Commanded to reinforce San Andreas, Orozco ignored the or- .der and Villa took the town, executing the entire garrison. Fooled the Federal Generals. HE Federal armies were gathering. Villa T wasted no time. He had a bare 6000 men, and the forces threatening him amounted to three times that number. Torreon alone was of no value to him; what he needed was a port of entry to the United States. He saw, too, that by leaving a garrison in Torreon he would divide his little army. So he boldly withdrew from that town in the face of the protests of all the other chiefs and advanced once more upon Chihuahua. The fighting there continued for five days. Then Villa pretended to retreat, a ruse which was entirely successful. The Federals in Chihuahua got gloriously drunk that night. Gen. Mercado gave a banquet and the whole city was illuminat- ed, while solemn high mass was celebrated in the cathedral. While old Gen. Terrazas was delivering his after-dinner speech, while the priest in the ca- thedral was elevating the host, while the band played gayly in the plaza and the drunken sol- diers paraded under the red, white and green lights, Villa marched a thousand men around the city in the dark, struck the National Railway line at Terrazas, a station 10 miles north of Chihua- hua, captured the telegraph operator and seized a coal train. Without a moment’s delay the troops boarded the open cars and started for Juarez in the dark- ness. Next morning, half way between Juarez and Chihuahua, he ran into a troop train coming south with two companies to reinforce Mercado, under Maj. Guzman. So absolutely unprepared were the Federals that Villa captured them without a shot. His own engine had broken down and the loco- motive of the troop train was unequal to the task of hauling. the thousand men and the prisoners. Villa made .Guzman’s telegrapher send a mes- sage to Gen. Castro who commanded at Juarez, saying: ‘Villa and a thousand men reported south of here. Guzman.” Word came back: “Try to get into communi- cation with Mercado Castro.” Villa wired: “Telegraph line cut this side of Chihuahua. Shall I go on or retreat?” And Cas- tro said, “You had better retreat!” At the next station Villa sent this message: “Engine broken down. Send another engine.” Castro replied that the engine would leave im- mediately. It came in sight pretty soon and Vil- Ja hitched it to his train. Then he telegraphed: “Engine received. Much thanks. Will arrive about 9 o’clock.” But when the rebels reached Juarez Castro had already got wind of their coming and fied. The port of entry was Villa’s without the loss of a man. Rebels Were Poorly Armed. HEN Gen. Mercado awoke with a bad W headache the next morning it was to learn that Villa’s army’ had entirely passed around the city and was in possession of his line of communications to the north. Mer- cado delayed the attack for three days, and by that time Villa had moved his 6000 men by train to Juarez. Five thousand Feiefals finally left ~~ No More Standing Armies. Gen. Villa. : EL PASO, Tez., Mar. 7. HEN Gen. Villa was asked the other W day if he intended to keep his trained soldiers as part of the new Government's standing army when the revolution should be triumphant, he em. claimed: cee “When the revolution is accomplished there will never be another standing army in Mexico. Armies are the most powerful sup- port of a dictator. All shall work—every Mexican must de busy at some useful employ-; . ment. Work educates men and makes them f{ good citizens. The mind of an idle soldier runs to war. Instead of pensions, we will give the old soldiers work. “I want to establish military colonies al over the republic of those who have fought, so well amd so long for liberty. Three days a week they shall work and three days un~ dergo military training. Every man in the | republic who wishes it shall be given a little | piece of land for his own. The great hacte . endas must go forever. “There will be a school for every Mexican 4 child. First there must be the means of living for our people, but the schools are 4 nearest to my heart. “For my#elf, my only ambition is to retire _ to one of the military colonies and raise corm. and cattle until I die, among my compan eros who have suffered so much with me.” men, with two batteries of field pieces, mountain cannon and plenty of machine guns, Villa left the railroad line carefully unob- structed. The day before Mercado’s column ar- rived he got on an engine and went south, carefully looking over the ground, At Sierra Blanca he destroyed the railroad tracks just where there is a patch of vast soft sand. Above this, on a flat mesa, in a position to command this sandy ground, he placed the five cannon captured in Juarez. Then he marched out his 6000 volunteers and posted them around the hills. } The Federals, commanded by Rojas and or i pinal, fell neatly into Villa’s 8 trap, | Meee train drew near, Villa himself slipped to rear and cut the railway line to make retreat impossible. The expedition had to detrain then under a merciless rifle fire from the sand hills, The Federal cannon sank into the soft sand and could not even be trained upon the enemy. Villa opened from the mesa with his big guns. His wild, hardy volunteers charged down upon the trained Government troops, yelling like In- dians. Orozco’s and Rojas’ men gave way first, abandoning the batteries. Then the rout began. Mercado lost at Sierra Blanca more than 1200 men killed, wounded and dispersed; two batter- ies of six field guns each, and arms and ammu- nition to equip more than 3000 men. ¥3 It was a terrible blow. The Federal Generals in Chihuahua held a conference. Orpinel, Rojas, Orozco, Salazar and Mancilla declared that their soldiers were demoralized; that they would re- fuse to fight Francisco Villa, that invincible de- stroyer, whose name in the last few days had | blackened the Northern sky like a thunder cloud. The most terrifying rumors spread among the troops; that Villa tortured his prisoners with red-hot pincers; that he tore the hearts out of them alive, as the Aztecs once did. Fat, serious, vaccilating Mercado hesitated a few days, and gave the order to evacuate Chihuahua, | Destroy Their Own Train. fe was a strange sight. The soldiers smashed ae in the doors of several cantinas, and began to drink tequila. They reeled down the street toward the railway station a confised, disorganized mob, singing and yelling. Some had wrapped themselves in yards and yards ef costly lace; others had put on expensive silk dresses of bright colors. | One man made himself a head dress of price less ostrich feathers and another wore three strings of pearls around his sombrero. ‘Twenty seized a wagon and bore off a grand plano, A Sergeant carried a phonograph on his baci Some contented themselves with children’s toys, and one solemnly pushed a new baby carriage. At Hormigas, the end of the railroad, the army detrained in the middle of a vast sandy desert. The seven trains, end to end, making a line of more than two miles of engines and cars, were destroyed by fire and dynamite It’ was then discovered that it would be impossible to carry the vast amount of baggage on the 220- mile desert march to Ofjinaga; so rifles, cantion, | ammunition and two carloads of alfalfa were, heaped in one mighty pile and set afre. = And in the light of this tremendous conflagrm tion the Federals set out on their eleven days” journey to the frontier, their line of march strewn with toys, baby carriages, silks, laces and the ruins of villegm aachel Of OOo In the center of the army traveled 180 of ¢ h ee 2 é j : “ter i Grosses men. attacked it five times tm § night. pprwrermngetint sy ied Chihuahua to crush the daring rebel—5000 picked { i Re Arian tes oo te 4 ee wr ee a ee ee ee er ee 7 so%