FRANK P. MACLENNAN

TOPEKA, KAN., July 10, 1916.
Mr. W. E. Connelley, Secretary State Historical Society, Topeka, Kan.:

IN REPLY to your request for a brief biography of myself for use in the History of Kansas Newspapers I hand you herewith a few notes very hurriedly written.

I was born over fifty years ago in Ohio, and was a Buckeye until the age of fifteen, when my parents brought me to Emporia, Kan., where I resided until thirty years ago; then coming to Topeka and buying the State Journal at public auction.

When I was a boy, at Springfield, I hung around the printing offices, folded papers, and was a newspaper carrier for the old Springfield Advertiser.

When twenty years old I had completed, in three years, the regular course at the University of Kansas. About twelve years later, much to my surprise, the institution gave me a master's degree.

At the end of three years at the University my father met with financial reverses, and I started to work. Without my knowledge, my mother borrowed $300 from a friend and sent me back to finish with my class. It took me a number of years to pay off that note, but I was grateful to my mother for her action.

When I left the University I had $13 in money (most of which I deposited in a bank at Lawrence) and the $300 debt. I weighed 123 pounds; weight now is 200. A school chum and myself walked to Abilene, where there was a big demand for harvest hands. I learned to make a wheat band on the way. That was before the time of the self-binder, which was just coming into use. I made from $2 to $2.50 per day and board in the harvest field, and gained fourteen pounds.

The following year I also helped harvest the wheat in Sedgwick county and worked on farms along the "Cowskin," southwest of Wichita, and also in the neighborhood of Victor Murdock's present suburban three-acre home.

After harvest I joined a railroad surveying party on the plains of western Kansas and in Colorado. I spent about two years at this sort of work, including a great variety of railroad engineering, and when times were hard worked on the section.

Having gained a sound constitution by much outside work summer and winter, I went into newspaper work. For about seven years I worked in practically every department on the Emporia News—mechanical, reportorial, business, editorial, and as one of the proprietors. I worked on the old Taylor drum-cylinder press and in the composing room. I never set much type, and have frequently regretted that I never had the opportunity to become sufficiently proficient to qualify me for a membership in the International Typographical Union, which I consider one of the greatest organizations in the United States. The recently retired president of that institution, James M. Lynch, is certainly one of the best and fairest men I ever knew. The Typographical Union is a wonderful institution for its members, and does them a world of good. Any good printer should be proud to belong to it. It not only helps the members to secure fair wages and good working conditions—to both of which they are surely entitled—but it helps them when they grow old, and helps them, through the Printers Home, when they are sick and incapacitated. If all unions were modeled on the plan of the printers' there would be fewer labor troubles.

I did some "make-up" on the old Emporia Weekly News—with its ten long columns to the page, making long arms necessary—and ran the Mustang mailer, which included setting the names and addresses of the subscribers in type, and keeping the dates of their subscriptions correct on the galleys.

Jacob Stotler, Alexander Butts and I were equal partners on the Emporia Daily News for several years.

When my interest in the News was sold I really wanted to take a six months' vacation and spend it in Washington, D. C., as a news correspondent, and see how the government was conducted and what congressmen did to earn their salaries; but the Topeka State Journal was advertised to be sold at public auction three weeks after I left the Emporia News, so I came up here and bid for it. I got it.

A year afterward I tried to get rid of it, because I found it was in far worse condition than I had imagined any newspaper could be, and I had sunk so much money in it the first year—all that I had, and all that I could possibly borrow, I thought—with no prospects but gloom and expense in sight. Nobody would buy it, so I tried to make the best of what I considered a bad bargain, and about that time the paper began to "play even" and pay a little. My credit grew better, and I was able to borrow more money.

Last year I spent almost as much money for new machinery as the paper originally cost me, and this year I am spending about as much for new equipment, in order to keep up with the procession. Most of my earnings go back into the State Journal.

We had to raise our advertising rates the first of April, and at to-day's market price for white paper alone it would cost me $3000 more a month for white paper than it did a year ago, and yet one or two advertisers think I have no right to advance the rate, even if the circulation has doubled since they began to pay the former rate.

I have always liked reporting on a newspaper, and enjoy work in the composing room, around the forms and make-up, and about the desk where the copy lands, and have an ungratified ambition to learn to operate that wonderful machine, the linotype. I own eight of these machines, including the very latest model "17," now shipping from the factory.

In the thirty years of the State Journal under my conduct there has never been a strike. All differences have been settled by agreement and conciliation.

In addition to being a newspaper man, I am also a farmer—that is to say, we can raise nearly everything we eat on the 60-acre place I have five miles west of Topeka. I have recently gone into the banking business. Six months ago I had no thought of anything of this sort, but all of the nine banks in Topeka and two trust companies, I greatly regret to say, combined against me and the State Journal to discredit the paper and to deprive the city and county of a just rate for their surplus funds. I was forced into the banking business to defend the integrity, reputation and good faith of my newspaper, and to secure what I considered the rights of the city. The new bank, I am sure, will be a benefit to all the banks of the city, increase their business, and raise the financial standing of the capital city of Kansas.

I will be merely vice president of the Kansas Reserve State Bank, and will try to devote an hour a day to it. Nothing will take my energies and time from the daily paper. I have associated with me some of the very best bankers and business men in Topeka and Kansas, and they are all enthusiastic and delighted over our great prospects.

I have a comfortable home for my good family—my wife, Anna Goddard MacLennan, and daughter Mary; a fireproof modern newspaper office; a newspaper which pays its way, gives its owner an adequate livelihood, and earns sufficient money to buy the new machinery and equipment constantly necessary, and employ labor at fair rates. A great many people are employed by the State Journal, and seem to like their work and be in comfortable circumstances by reason of it.

I have never held any public office, elective or appointive, and have no ambition in that direction. Without being a candidate, and without my knowledge, I was elected vice president of the board of directors of the Associated Press, the greatest news-gathering association in the world, having a membership of 900 papers and expending $3,000,000 a year in its cooperative method of gathering and disseminating news, for it is an organization without profit. I was also elected for a second term, which was rather unusual. From my own viewpoint, I regard the office of director of the Associated Press as preferable to that of the office of United States senator.

I love my work, am out of debt, and consequently content and hopeful, constantly striving to make a better newspaper and make Topeka and Kansas better places in which to live.

Very truly yours, Frank P. Maclennan

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