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< Campane, Number 48 | Campane, Number 50 >
The Loyalty Factor
by Richard L. Hopkins
Even when we stand back and take long, objective looks at the amateur organizations to which we belong, many of us find it a bit difficult to say exactly why we are loyal to one organization in preference to another.
Being “strangely warmed” by the Amalgamated Printers Association, the upstart of groups in the realm of amateur printing, I often have been quite frustrated in seeking the membership of “darned good printers” already active in other amateur groups.
Some will say, “I strongly subscribe to the all-printer philosophy of APA and I think I would rather be in an organization like yours, but at present I’m fully satisfied with NAPA.”
Such replies struck up an unconscious study on my part a few years ago in an attempt to discover just exactly what the basic differences were in the various amateur organizations. I wondered why certain people were loyal to one group in preference over another.
This study has only proved to me that no basic difference exists. (The APA rule allowing only printers is just a slight variation.) Nevertheless, something must make one group more appealing than another – or does it? Such complex statements as these bear out what I mean:
“I like the AAPA conventions much more than I do the NAPA meets, and maybe, deep down, I like the organization better, too. But if I’m going to do anything, it’ll be for the National….”
“Sure, I’m a printer – more so than an amateur journalist. I guess the only reason I’m more active in the American than the APA is that I joined AAPA first.”
There are quite a few “alphabet soup” hobbyists – those who string out a line of organization initials a mile long in their colophons, but most don’t treat these groups individually. Personally, I do not cross-circulate my two regular journals between APA and AAPA, the two organizations to which I belong. But I find I’m in a minority. Most alphabet soupers favor one group in their writing but run off enough to flood all bundles.
This certainly is clear indication that there is no difference in the many amateur press groups existing in the United States today. They all seek the same kind of members, and they all pursue the same goals.
A theoretician would claim, under such circumstances, that a “summit” meeting should be held, whereby the presidents of all organizations would decide their groups should specialize – one in printing, one in poetry, one in prose, etc. However, a person fully aware of the structures of the associations would laugh him off the podium.
This merely leads back to the original question of why persons are loyal to one group over another, for many belong, or have belonged, to more than one such group.
The answer, apparently, is not one of basic difference in organizations. Rather, it is one of personalities. A person becomes strongly and permanently loyal to the group which first stimulated his interest or activity.
This usually is the first group he joined, but not always. Sometimes it’s the group which had a tremendous “welcoming committee” or a strong personality who engulfed him with a flow of friendly correspondence.
The point is that personalities develop allegiance, not the intrinsic qualities of the organization. And it’s just human nature for such allegiance to be relatively ridiculous and contradictory.
One, for example, who belonged to APA, AAPA and NAPA, declared a few years back that he sent his journal through all three bundles and privately mailed about thirty copies to others. “I always receive better and warmer response from these thirty mailings,” he declared.
Private mailings are not at all uncommon. Nor are cross-memberships, which go to prove that actually, organizations cannot be distinguished as superior, inferior or even “different.” Nor are they in competition with each other.
Rather, they’re quite homogeneous. They all have their “hard core members,” but never will all these persons agree that one big happy “clan” would be better than the numerous little “happy families,” even though they belong to them all. Even though they duplicate each other in nearly all respects, especially in membership, a merger or a specialization of activities will never happen. Personal allegiance, emotionally based, will prevent it.
A Distaff Pair of Ex-Presidents
by Ralph Babcock
How or when publicity for the National Amateur Press Association will bring results, one never knows. In 1934 a letter by President Ralph Babcock in the Intertype house organ told about NAPA amateur papers. Over a year later Elaine Jorgensen, a gal printer in Salt Lake City, saw it, joined, put her city on the a.j. map before World War II and gained the NAPA presidency. Later she repeated the process by perking up Denver to convention-hosting scope in 1955.
Elaine’s father, one-time country newspaperman, owned a small job printing business in Salt Lake City where she worked as a printer’s devil. She was setting type and feeding platen presses by 1935 when Babcock enlisted Oakland aid in acquainting her with a.j. After printing four issues of Marionette for Marion Morcom, Elaine began her own Inklings from Utah, and by June 1936 had recruited a second Utah NAPA member.
Salt Lake City as an active a.j. center provided a dozen members and added about three creditable papers to NAPA activity. Elaine co-edited Elucian, Salt Lake Sun, as well as printing Busy Bee (8) and Utam (6).
Inklings, attractive two-column style 5×7 paper, ran for 17 issues (mostly 4-pagers) 1936-40, with three more in 1945. Elaine was appointed manuscript recorder 1936 after the second issue. Defeated for official editor in 1937 – primarily because no one present at Boston knew her or had met her, she served as mailing manager that year and was elected editor in 1938. Her fine 60-page volume (which she printed) led straight to the presidency at her first convention: Berkeley, 1939.
Confident that Ralph Babcock could turn out a fine official organ, Berkeley conventioneers disregarded his pre-convention refusal of the job and forced his election. Friendship proved the nemesis of Elaine’s administration. Between dilatory correspondence with a half-interested editor and printing the official organ herself, the Jorgensen administration – with late or non-appearing issues of the National Amateur – slowed to anything but a success. Officers were not the only apathetic ones, however, for only two mailing bundles appeared.
April brought charges to the executive judges against Elaine for failure to remove the editor for not getting the official organ out on time. They were dropped, due only to the lateness in the term and promised activity from both president and editor.
Inklings won editorial honorary mention in 1940.
Like many young Mormons, Elaine volunteered a missionary period, spending sixteen months in Nebraska, 1941-42. Back in Salt Lake City, she continued the Jorgensen Press after her father’s death, marrying Robert Meers in 1943. Answering a Dr. IQ jackpot question on a radio program to the tune of $1100 enabled her to fly east to the 1946 convention. She also attended the 1948 Los Angeles convention.
While Burton J. Smith was stationed near Salt Lake City in 1944 subscriptions were taken, paper purchased and composition begun on his ambitious 80-page “Handbook of A. J.” After his death no one showed sufficient interest to help finish the project and it was abandoned with the sale of the Jorgensen Press in 1947.
After a divorce she married Jess Peck in 1952. When Larry was born the family moved to Denver in 1953. There, characteristically, she recruited half a dozen members and helped start the Denver club with a display of a.j. papers at Denver’s annual hobby exposition. Mrs. Peck now works as a newspaper proofreader.
Time and again when top-flight NAPA leaders – Brodie, Edkins, Vondy, Spink – have declined the presidency, dependable if not superlative political string-pullers have had to “carry on.”
It was neither sparkling writing nor outstanding publishing which gradually graduated Sesta Tuttle Matheison to high office, but rather fifteen years of interest and minor endeavor. In the 1929-47 period she maintained at least voting activity six years, attended seven NAPA conventions and handled most arrangements for Detroit’s 1947 meeting. In the 1930’s she joined the Michigan APA and Central States Press Club groups.
Mascot, vest-pocket 4-pager which she published, took editorial honorable mention in 1936, but probably the only issue of note was her 18th in December, 1960. Of her thirteen recruits in 1936 and six in 1942, neighbor B. J. Smith and Toledo’s Doc King were most productive.
As 1943 mailing manager she inaugurated printed issues of The Mailer and carried on even though her duties forced her to move to another apartment!
Next she was 1944 bureau of critics chairman. While vice-president in 1945 under Williametta, she published six issues of Stepping Stones on behalf of recruits, and was overwhelmingly chosen official editor, 49-22-20, over Alf Babcock and Felicitas Haggerty. After a pitched campaign battle next year in which the Harold Segal-Alf Babcock supporters fizzled away and the expected Alf-74 to Sesta-60 vote turned into a 93-37 rout (out of 145 votes), she was elected president.
Sesta’s few slight papers never adequately reflected her training: as reporter on the Asheville, N.C., Citizen, Adrian College journalism student, graduate of Michigan State Normal College, University of Michigan B.S. graduate (art and English major) and teacher.
Few knew that her uncle was E. D. Stair, former amateur, later publisher of the professional Detroit Free Press, Sesta was a dilettante hobbyist of talent: pianist, jewelry-maker, painter in oils, sculptor, gardener and flyer. One of the first Michigan girls to fly solo in 1936, she served in Civil Air Patrol in World War II.
At the Detroit Signal Laboratory, 1942-45, she had a responsible position and later with Harry Ferguson, Inc., was supervisor of the reproduction and stenographic department.
Mimeographed convention papers often received her supporting hand. Of the seventeen conventions she attended, between 1947-59 she missed only ‘55. This is the most notable portion of her record: she is one of the handful of ever-present conventioneers whose yearly treks have added to the success of NAPA conventions for thirty years.
Many a pre-convention letter-writing roundup along the Detroit-Springfield-Roanoke axis delivered proxies enough to pick puppets that made disdainful printers cringe.
During a 1954 trip abroad she visited English and Dutch amateurs.
Until his death, her husband Clele (also a school teacher and superintendent) was likewise a familiar voice at NAPA conventions.
Her most recent office was manuscript manager, two terms 1956-58.
Ralph Babcock’s twin profiles on Ex-Presidents Elaine (Jorgensen) Peck and Sesta T. Matheison, as well as “Two Moitoret Capsules” (mother Dora and son Victor) in Campane 47 were originally written for inclusion in a series intended to bring up to date William Ahlhauser’s 1919 book, Our Ex-Presidents.
Care and Feeding of Hyphens
by Harold Segal
Some people seem to have acquired the impression that I am waging a personal vendetta upon that poor misguided piece of type whose only excuse for existence is a stubby crossbar, completely wasting that portion of a type sliver that might be used for the bowl of a character or, perhaps, ascenders and descenders.
Well, it is not so. I love hyphens. As a matter of fact, I used 27 in Campane 48 and fourteen in the previous issue. If anyone doubts my arithmetic, they can count them.
As everyone knows, there are 89 bins in a normal God-fearing California job type-case and one of these smaller bins, sandwiched between the period and quad box and relegated a notch below the colon, is reserved for our friend the hyphen.
The hyphen these days is a much maligned and over-worked character. Typists are forced to use it for an em-dash, which horrifies every typographer. Current usage seems to have substituted the poor hyphen to the spot so proudly held in another day by the nut- or en-dash. Cost-cutting type foundries, bent on eliminating ligatures and other typographical niceties in this computer age have subtly but high-handedly decided that the hyphen shall do both jobs. We may not like it, but… amen!
From the purists we learn these usages of -, –, and —: The big guy, the em-dash, is used to mark a sudden break or abrupt change in thought; and, instead of commas or parentheses, if the meaning may thus be clarified. Use it before a final clause that summarizes a series of ideas, and preceding a credit line. There are a couple minor uses depending on shop style. The middle one, the en-dash, has survived on a government subsidy, clinging desperately to life in the cloistered Government Printing Office. There it is used in combinations of figures, letters or figures and letters (as 4-H Club, AFL-CIO, $3-$5) or in the absence of the word to when denoting a period of time (1965-66 or May-December).
In short, the rule of thumb is: the hyphen connects words, the en-dash connects and separates, while the em-dash separates. However, Campane has only a very limited quantity of en-dashes and, bereft of a government subsidy, is forced to follow popular usage.
But back to the subject and the care of hyphens.
When you lay a case you should follow these simple rules: Save the hyphens for last and set them all in the stick. Examine each hyphen carefully for nick – it would be tragic to have a wrong font. See that they stand squarely on their feet as we would hate to have a slacker in the group, bent and leaning on the others. Then, take a micrometer and meticulously check the height of each hyphen. It must be exactly .918” – if higher it will punch through the paper and if lower you won’t have a hyphen at all, but merely a high 4-to-em space.
Now that all these hyphens have measured up to these specifications, take them all mindfully in your fingers. Cradle them tenderly as it would be a misdemeanor to scratch the face of a hyphen, then walk over to that part of the shop were you keep the hell-box and drop them in.
And that is what you believe happens to my hyphens.
The above, tidied up a bit, is the substance of my utterings at the recent Philadelphia convention banquet. A couple of conventioneers remarked that they would like to see it in print – and we are pleased to oblige.
The banquet oratory was played, happily, in low key. We have run the tapes a half-dozen times and concluded that the wisest move of the convention committee was to nail Sheldon Wesson for toastmaster, who was the star of the evening. Sample quote:
“Eighty-nine years ago today in this very city, a group of young boys met to form the National Amateur Press Association. There had been regional and one attempted nation-wide organization earlier, and out of this chaos came the first permanent organization in this hobby of ours. We have managed to maintain both the association and the chaos ever since.”
Another: “I’m going to ask one of our distinguished publishers to rise and explain to us why, comma, for God’s sake, comma, I print poetry. George Trainer’s career in our association has been intermittently meteoric. I don’t think anybody has set as many square yards or acres of type as George Trainer up until 1941. Then he disappeared from our midst. He didn’t publish for some years and all of a sudden has come back as the proponent of the lady poet…. Tell us, George, why, comma, for God’s sake, comma, you print poetry?”
Still another: “If type should be difficult to get [in the future], should become the plaything of the wealthy few, we may very well go back to one of the earlier forms of reproduction of the printed word. I am going to ask Bill Haywood to offer us, then, the salvation of this grim future and tell us how to publish 500 copies of an individually hand-lettered, illuminated 24-page amateur journal in one week-end.”
Campane is published in the interest of organized amateur journalism and the National Amateur Press Association by co-editors Hazel and Harold Segal, Bristol, Pa. 19007. Articles discussing associational problems, critiques or recollections and research in the history of the hobby are constantly sought and welcomed by the editors.