How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 22

THE PARTY OF THE THIRD PART

BY WALTER E. WEYL

"The quarrel," opined Sir Lucius O'Trigger, "is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it."

Something like this was once the att.i.tude of the swaggering youth of Britain and Ireland, who quarreled "genteelly" and fought out their b.l.o.o.d.y duels "in peace and quietness." Something like this, also, after the jump of a century, was the att.i.tude of employers and trade-unions all over the world toward industrial disputes. Words were wasted breath; the time to strike or to lock out your employees was when you were ready and your opponent was not. If you won, so much the better; if you lost--at any rate, it was your own business.

Outsiders were not presumed to interfere. "Faith!" exclaimed Sir Lucius, "that same interruption in affairs of this nature shows very great ill-breeding."

(3)

(_McClure's Magazine_)

RIDING ON BUBBLES

BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT

"And the Prince sped away with his princess in a magic chariot, the wheels of which were four bubbles of air."

Suppose you had read that in an Andersen or a Grimm fairy tale in the days when you firmly believed that Cinderella went to a ball in a state coach which had once been a pumpkin; you would have accepted the magic chariot and its four bubbles of air without question.

What a pity it is that we have lost the credulity and the wonder of childhood! We have our automobiles--over two and a half million of them--but they have ceased to be magic chariots to us. And as for their tires, they are mere "shoes" and "tubes"--anything but the bubbles of air that they are.

In the whole mechanism of modern transportation there is nothing so paradoxical, nothing so daring in conception as these same bubbles of air which we call tires.

(4)

(_Good Housekeeping_)

GERALDINE FARRAR'S ADVICE TO ASPIRING SINGERS

INTERVIEW BY JOHN CORBIN

"When did I first decide to be an opera singer?" Miss Farrar smiled.

"Let me see. At least as early as the age of eight. This is how I remember. At school I used to get good marks in most of my studies, but in arithmetic my mark was about sixty. That made me unhappy. But once when I was eight, I distinctly remember, I reflected that it didn't really matter because I was going to be an opera singer. How long before that I had decided on my career I can't say."

(5)

(_The Delineator_)

HOW TO START A CAFETERIA

BY AGNES ATHOL

"If John could only get a satisfactory lunch for a reasonable amount of money!" sighs the wife of John in every sizable city in the United States, where work and home are far apart.

"He hates sandwiches, anyway, and has no suitable place to eat them; and somehow he doesn't feel that he does good work on a cold box lunch. But those clattery quick-lunch places which are all he has time for, or can afford, don't have appetizing cooking or surroundings, and all my forethought and planning over our good home meals may be counteracted by his miserable lunch. I believe half the explanation of the 'tired business man' lies in the kind of lunches he eats."

Twenty-five cents a day is probably the outside limit of what the great majority of men spend on their luncheons. Some cannot spend over fifteen. What a man needs and so seldom gets for that sum is good, wholesome, appetizing food, quickly served. He wants to eat in a place which is quiet and not too bare and ugly. He wants to buy real food and not table decorations. He is willing to dispense with elaborate service and its accompanying tip, if he can get more food of better quality.

The cafeteria lunch-room provides a solution for the mid-day lunch problem and, when wisely located and well run, the answer to many a competent woman or girl who is asking: "What shall I do to earn a living?"

(6)

(_Newspaper Enterprise a.s.sociation_)

AMERICANIZATION OF AMERICA IS PLANNED

BY E.C. RODGERS

Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.--America Americanized!

That's the goal of the naturalization bureau of the United States department of labor, as expressed by Raymond P. Crist, deputy commissioner, in charge of the Americanization program.

(7)

(_Tractor and Gas Engine Review_)

FIRE INSURANCE THAT DOESN'T INSURE

BY A.B. BROWN

"This entire policy, unless otherwise provided by agreement endorsed hereon, or added hereto, shall be void if the interest of the insured be other than unconditional and sole owners.h.i.+p."

If any farmer anywhere in the United States will look up the fire insurance policy on his farm building, and will read it carefully, in nine cases out of ten, he will find tucked away somewhere therein a clause exactly like the one quoted above, or practically in the same words.

BEGINNING WITH A QUESTION. Every question is like a riddle; we are never satisfied until we know the answer. So a question put to us at the beginning of an article piques our curiosity, and we are not content until we find out how the writer answers it.

Instead of a single question, several may be asked in succession. These questions may deal with different phases of the subject or may repeat the first question in other words. It is frequently desirable to break up a long question into a number of short ones to enable the rapid reader to grasp the idea more easily. Greater prominence may be gained for each question by giving it a separate paragraph.

Rhetorical questions, although the equivalent of affirmative or negative statements, nevertheless retain enough of their interrogative effect to be used advantageously for the beginning of an article.

That the appeal may be brought home to each reader personally, the p.r.o.noun "you," or "yours," is often embodied in the question, and sometimes readers are addressed by some designation such as "Mr. Average Reader," "Mrs. Voter," "you, high school boys and girls."

The indirect question naturally lacks the force of the direct one, but it may be employed when a less striking form of beginning is desired.

The direct question, "Do you know why the sky is blue?" loses much of its force when changed into the indirect form, "Few people know why the sky is blue"; still it possesses enough of the riddle element to stimulate thought. Several indirect questions may be included in the initial sentence of an article.

QUESTION BEGINNINGS

(1)

(_Kansas City Star_)

TRACING THE DROUTH TO ITS LAIR