of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 386-388
JOHN MAHIN ENTERS HERALD OFFICE. From this viewpoint, looking back over the seventy years of the history of the Muscatine Journal, by far the most important event marking the administration of Stout and Israel in the Herald office, was the taking into their employ as a raw, green, young apprentice of thirteen years, the man who was afterward to make his name synonomous throughout the state and the nation with that of the Muscatine Journal--John Mahin. In 1847, Jacob Mahin, the father, apprenticed his son, who had given evidence of his bent toward the newspaper profession, to Stout & Israel and for more than sixty years following, with the exception of but two short intervals, John Mahin was a fixture in the office which he then entered. Of his entrance into the printing office and of the conditions which existed at that time, Mr. Mahin a few years ago wrote:
THE HERALD OFFICE IN 1847. "When I entered the Journal office as an apprentice in November, 1847, the only practical printers then living in the town were William P. Israel and Lafayette Parvin, both of whom were employed in the Journal office. The first named was a business partner of N. L. Stout, the publishing firm being Stout & Israel, but Mr. Stout not being a printer, performed the duties of editor of the paper. The office was in the third story of the brick building (108) still standing on West Second street. The printing establishment was a primitive affair, consisting of three double racks of cases for type, a Washington hand press and an imposing stone, about four by eight feet on the surface. All the mechanical work was done in one room, where was also the editorial writing table. Mr. Israel and Mr. Parvin were masters of the art preservative and were my preceptors in learning the trade. My duties consisted of sweeping out in the morning, carrying water and wood, and keeping up the fires when necessary, while the remainder of the time was devoted to setting type. I waS also carrier for the paper, delivering it to the town subscribers on Saturday. It was quite an achievement to 'learn the boxes,' that is to ascertain the arrangement of the letters in the case containing the type, for they were not arranged alphabetically as one might suppose, but for convenience. The type most used was put in the most convenient places. The letter 'e' therefore had the largest box in front of the compositor as he stood at the case. The 'i' came next and was on the right hand side of the 'e' box. The 'k,' 'j' and 'z' boxes were small and on the outer part of the case, because comparatively few of them were used. It was not many weeks until I was given copy to set for the paper and I was immensely proud when what I had set first appeared in the paper. The news at that time was mostly in reference to the Mexican war. There were also stirring times in France and I remember once when I had set up a reprint article referring to Napoleon, with an 'a' instead of an '0' in the last syllable, I was much mortified when the proof sheet came to me to find that I was in error. After that I kept in mind the humorous precept of Mr. Israel, who said it was a good rule to 'follow copy even if it was blown out of the window.'
EARLY PRINTERS WORKED HARD. "Although the Herald was only four pages of six columns each and was issued once a week, its two printers and one apprentice seemed hard pressed to do all of the mechanical work on it. Issue day was Saturday but almost invariably we had to work all Friday night to get the paper out on time. It was my business to 'roll the forms,' that is, apply the ink to the type by means of a large soft roller made in an iron mold, from glue and molasses, which had previously been boiled to the proper consistency. These rollers had to be made by the office force in those days. Some years later they were procured at the type foundry. Many a Friday night, too tired and sleepy, with hands blackened by ink, wearing a large paper apron to protect my clothes as far as possible, I stood behind the press and at proper intervals applied the ink to a form with a two handed roller. The pressman, who was usually Mr. Israel, had the hardest part of the job. Each sheet of paper had to be placed by hand on what was called a 'tympan,' the paper Was then clasped to its place by a rim of the tympan called the 'brisket,' which was drawn down upon it, swinging on hinges. Then it was turned over flat on the forms resting on an iron bed called the 'platin,' then by turning a crank the 'platin' with the forms was carried beneath the frame work of the press, when another pull on a lever brought the upper part of the press down upon the paper on the type and made the impression. Then the form had to be drawn out in the same manner, the 'tympan' raised, the paper unclasped and taken off and laid on a board prepared for the purpose. This process, which I fear the uninitiated reader will not understand because of the technical terms employed, printed only one side of the paper. This side was usually printed Thursday. The last side required precisely the same process on Friday night."
Contrasted with the Journal of today, with its splendid Goss press printing ten thousand completed papers of eight, ten, twelve or sixteen pages an hour, and its battery of three Merganthaler linotype machines, the office occupying its own large building and employing nearly fifty persons inclusive of carriers, it will be seen that the conditions in that early day were indeed primitive.
HERALD THEN HAD FIVE HUNDRED CIRCULATION. Mr. Mahin adds further touches to his graphic picture of the early day printing office. He says: "A pressman on the old Washington hand press did well if he could print a 'token' an hour. The term 'token' has become obsolete even in printing offices and I must therefore explain that it then meant ten quires of paper, each quire containing twenty-four sheets, so it took two hours under the old process to print an issue of two hundred and forty papers as each paper had to go through the press twice. As my recollection now serves me, the Herald had a circulation of about five hundred, while I was an apprentice in the office.
"The Herald office had some job printing to do in those days. It was the custom to print invitations to funerals with a dark border around them. Ball tickets were printed in the gaudiest style of the art. Chromatic presses were unknown then, so a color or tint was given to the ticket by sprinkling some powder on it as it came from the press, before there was time for the ink to dry. In this kind of printing it was my duty to apply the ink with a ball made by tightly packing cotton in a piece of silk. All kinds of jobs were printed on the Washington press, as there was no other kind of a press in the office.
"The practice in apprenticeships in those days was an agreement on the part of the apprentice to stay three years in learning the trade, with promise of board and clothes the first year, board and clothes and fifty dollars the second year and board and clothes and one hundred dollars the third year. This was my agreement with Stout & Israel but the first year had barely closed when the firm quit business on account of financial difficulties."
It is not to be believed, however, that the young apprentice's disappointment in the business failure of his employers was measured solely or even in the greatest part by any monetary loss, for he was very fond of his employers and preceptors and often in later years declared his gratitude to them, especially to Mr. Stout, of whose family he was for some time a member.
TWO PIONEER PRINTERS. Of Israel and Parvin, the two printers in the office when Mr. Mahin joined the force, the latter writing for a special edition of this paper a few years ago said: "William P. Israel and Lafayette Parvin were the first practical printers with whom I came in contact. I was daily in the same office with them for nearly two years. I regret to say that their conversation was not the most edifying--in fact, most of the time it was the reverse. I was not presuming, and so I kept quiet; and it is well I did, for one day Mr. Parvin took me to one side and said: 'I notice that you take no part in our foolish talking; you are right; we are wrong; do not follow our example.' While Mr. Parvin was somewhat reckless in his talk, he was not intemperate, as was Mr. Israel, who a few years later died as the result of the drink habit."
Parvin was a younger brother of the late Hon. Theodore S. Parvin. His father, Joseph Parvin, kept the hotel now known as the Kemple House, in pioneer times. Israel's death occurred in Muscatine. Stout later died In Kansas.
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