How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 6

"We need trees most where our population is the thickest, and some trees, like some people, are not adapted to such a life," said Dr.

Mulford. "For street or school yard planting one of the first considerations is a hardy tree, that can find nourishment under brick pavements or granite sidewalks. It must be one that branches high from the ground and ought to be native to the country and climate. America has the prettiest native trees and shrubs in the world and it is true patriotism to recognize them.

"For Southern states one of the prettiest and best of shade trees is the laurel oak, and there will be thousands of them planted this spring. It is almost an evergreen and is a quick growing tree. The willow oak is another.

"A little farther north the red oak is one of the most desirable, and in many places the swamp maple grows well, though this latter tree does not thrive well in crowded cities.

"Nothing, however, is prettier than the American elm when it reaches the majesty of its maturity and I do not believe it will ever cease to be a favorite. One thing against it, though, is the 'elm beetle,'

a pest which is spreading and which will kill some of our most beautiful trees unless spraying is consistently practised. China berry trees, abundant in the South, and box elders, native to a score of states, are quick growing, but they reach maturity too soon and begin to go to pieces."

"What is the reason that so many Arbor day trees die?" Dr. Mulford was asked.

"Usually lack of protection, and often lack of care in planting,"

was the answer. "When the new tree begins to put out tender rootlets a child brus.h.i.+ng against it or 'inspecting' it too closely will break them off and it dies. Or stock will nip off the new leaves and shoots and the result is the same. A frame around the tree would prevent this.

"Then, often wild trees are too big when transplanted. Such trees have usually only a few long roots and so much of these are lost in transplanting that the large trunk cannot be nourished by the remainder. With nursery trees the larger they are the better it is, for they have a lot of small roots that do not have to be cut off.

"Fruit trees are seldom so successful as shade trees, either along a street or road or in a yard. In the first place their branches are too low and unless carefully pruned their shape is irregular. Then they are subject to so many pests that unless constant care is given them they will not bear a hatful of fruit a season.

"On the other hand, nut trees are usually hardy and add much to the landscape. Pecan, chestnut, walnut and s.h.a.ggy bark hickory are some of the more popular varieties."

The first Arbor day was observed in Nebraska, which has fewer natural trees than any other state. This was in 1872, and Kansas was the second to observe the day, falling into line in 1875.

Incidentally Kansas ranks next to Nebraska in dearth of trees.

The Arbor day idea originated with J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraskan who was appointed secretary of agriculture by Cleveland. Now every state in the Union recognizes the day and New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and others have gotten out extensive Arbor day booklets giving information concerning trees and birds; most of them even contain appropriate songs and poems for Arbor day programs.

How an interview combined with a description of a person may serve to create sympathy for her and for the cause that she represents is shown in the following article, which was published anonymously in the Sunday magazine section of the _Ohio State Journal_. It was ill.u.s.trated with two half-tone portraits, one of the young woman in Indian costume, the other showing her in street dress.

JUST LIKE POCAHONTAS OF 300 YEARS AGO

"_Oh, East is East and West is West, And never the two shall meet_."

BUT they may send messengers. Hark to the words of "One-who-does-things-well."

"I carry a message from my people to the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton,"

says Princess Galilolie, youngest daughter of John Ross, hereditary King of the "Forest Indians," the Cherokees of Oklahoma. "We have been a nation without hope. The land that was promised us by solemn treaty, 'so long as the gra.s.s should grow and the waters run,' has been taken from us. It was barren and wild when we received it seventy years ago. Now it is rich with oil and cultivation, and the whites coveted our possessions. Since it was thrown open to settlers no Cherokee holds sovereign rights as before, when it was his nation. We are outnumbered. I have come as a voice from my people to speak to the people of the Eastern States and to those at Was.h.i.+ngton--most of all, if I am permitted to do so, to lay our wrongs before the President's wife, in whose veins glows the blood of the Indian."

Only nineteen is this Indian princess--this twentieth century Pocahontas--who travels far to the seats of the mighty for her race.

She is a tall, slim, stately girl from the foothills of the Ozarks, from Tahlequah, former capital of the Cherokee Nation. She says she is proud of every drop of Indian blood that flows in her veins. But her skin is fair as old ivory and she is a college girl--a girl of the times to her finger-tips.

"When an Indian goes through college and returns to his or her people," she says with a smile, "they say, 'Back to the blanket!' We have few blankets among the Cherokees in Tahlequah. I am the youngest of nine children, and we are all of us college graduates, as my father was before us."

He is John Ross 3d, Chief of the Cherokee Nation, of mingled Scotch and Indian blood, in descent from "Cooweeskowee," John Ross I., the rugged old Indian King who held out against Andrew Jackson back in 1838 for the ancient rights of the Five Nations to their lands along the Southern Atlantic States.

She sat back on the broad window seat in the sunlight. Beyond the window lay a bird's-eye view of New York housetops, the white man's permanent tepee. Some spring birds alighted on a nearby telephone wire, sending out twittering mating cries to each other.

"They make me want to go home," she said with a swift, expressive gesture. "But I will stay until the answer comes to us. Do you know what they have called me, the old men and women who are wise--the full-bloods? Galilolie--'One-who-does-things-well.' With us, when a name is given it is one with a meaning, something the child must grow to in fulfillment. So I feel I must not fail them now."

"You see," she went on, lifting her chin, "it is we young half-bloods who must carry the strength and honor of our people to the world so it may understand us. All our lives we have been told tales by the old men--how our people were driven from their homes by the Government, how Gen. Winfield Scott's soldiers came down into our quiet villages and ordered the Indians to go forth leaving everything behind them. My great-grandfather, the old King Cooweeskowee, with his wife and children, paused at the first hilltop to look back at his home, and already the whites were moving into it. The house is still standing at Rossville, Ga. Do you know what the old people tell us children when we wish we could go back there?" Her eyes are half closed, her lips compressed as she says slowly, thrillingly: "They tell us it is easy to find the way over that 'Trail of Tears,' that through the wilderness it is blazed with the gravestones of those who were too weak to march.

"That was seventy years ago, in 1838. The Government promised to pay amply for all it took from us, our homes and lands, cattle--even furniture. A treaty was made solemnly between the Indians and the United States that Oklahoma should be theirs 'as long as the gra.s.s should grow and the waters run.'

"That meant perpetuity to us, don't you see?" She makes her points with a directness and simplicity that should disarm even the diplomatic suavity of Uncle Sam when he meets her in Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Year after year the Cherokees waited for the Government to pay. And at last, three years ago, it came to us--$133.19 to each Indian, seventy-eight years after the removal from Georgia had taken place.

"Oil was discovered after the Indians had taken the wilderness lands in Oklahoma and reclaimed them. It was as if G.o.d, in reparation for the wrongs inflicted by whites, had given us the riches of the earth. My people grew rich from their wells, but a way was found to bind their wealth so they could not use it. It was said the Indians were not fit to handle their own money."

She lifts eyebrows and shoulders, her hands clasped before her tightly, as if in silent resentment of their impotence to help.

"These are the things I want to tell; first our wrongs and then our colonization plan, for which we hope so much if the Government will grant it. We are outnumbered since the land was opened up and a ma.s.s of 'sooners,' as we call them--squatters, claimers, settlers--swarmed in over our borders. The Government again offered to pay us for the land they took back--the land that was to be ours in perpetuity 'while the gra.s.s grew and the waters ran.' We were told to file our claims with the whites. Some of us did, but eight hundred of the full-bloods went back forty miles into the foothills under the leaders.h.i.+p of Red Bird Smith. They refuse to sell or to accept the Government money for their valuable oil lands. To appease justice, the Government allotted them lands anyway, in their absence, and paid the money for their old property into the banks, where it lies untouched. Red Bird and his 'Night Hawks' refuse to barter over a broken treaty.

"Ah, but I have gone up alone to the old men there." Her voice softens. "They will talk to me because I am my father's daughter. My Indian name means 'One-who-does-things-well.' So if I go to them they tell me their heart longings, what they ask for the Cherokee.

"And I shall put the message, if I can, before our President's wife.

Perhaps she will help."

THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ARTICLE. A writer's own experiences, given under his name, under a pseudonym, or in anonymous form, can easily be made interesting to others. Told in the first person, such stories are realistic and convincing. The p.r.o.noun "I" liberally sprinkled through the story, as it must be, gives to it a personal, intimate character that most readers like. Conversation and description of persons, places, and objects may be included to advantage in these personal narratives.

The possibilities of the personal experience story are as great as are those of the interview. Besides serving as a vehicle for the writer's own experiences, it may be employed to give experiences of others. If, for example, a person interviewed objects to having his name used, it is possible to present the material obtained by the interview in the form of a personal experience story. In that case the article would have to be published without the writer's name, since the personal experiences that it records are not his own. Permission to present material in a personal experience story should always be obtained from the individual whose experiences the writer intends to use.

Articles designed to give practical guidance, to show readers how to do something, are particularly effective when written in the first person.

If these "how-to-do-something" articles are to be most useful to readers, the conditions under which the personal experience was obtained must be fairly typical. Personal experience articles of this type are very popular in women's magazines, agricultural journals, and publications that appeal to business men.

EXAMPLES OF THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE STORY. The opportunities for service offered to women by small daily newspapers are set forth in the story below, by means of the personal experiences of one woman. The article was published in the _Woman's Home Companion_, and was ill.u.s.trated by a half-tone reproduction of a wash drawing of a young woman seated at her desk in a newspaper office.

"THEY CALL ME THE 'HEN EDITOR'"

THE STORY OF A SMALL-TOWN NEWSPAPER WOMAN

By SADIE L. MOSSLER

"What do you stay buried in this burg for? Why, look how you drudge!

and what do you get out of it? New York or some other big city is the place for you. There's where you can become famous instead of being a newspaper woman in a one-horse town."

A big city newspaper man was talking. He was in our town on an a.s.signment, and he was idling away spare time in our office. Before I could answer, the door opened and a small girl came to my desk.

"Say," she said, "Mama told me to come in here and thank you for that piece you put in the paper about us. You ought to see the eatin's folks has brought us! Heaps an' heaps! And Ma's got a job scrubbin' three stores."

The story to which she referred was one that I had written about a family left fatherless, a mother and three small children in real poverty. I had written a plain appeal to the home people, with the usual results.

"That," I said, "is one reason that I am staying here. Maybe it isn't fame in big letters signed to an article, but it's another kind."

His face wore a queer expression; but before he could retort another caller appeared, a well-dressed woman.

"What do you mean," she declared, "by putting it in the paper that I served light refreshments at my party?"