Editorial By Charles M. Meredith, June 5, 1912
Editor and Proprietor of The Central News, Perkasie, Penna.
BY the death of Wilmer H. Johnson a conspicuous manmark is removed from our horizon.
With his sacred relation as husband and parent it is neither our duty nor privilege to engage, save that he was known as a “good provider.”
But with the personal relation of former friend, mentor and employer we propose for a few moments to emblazon the records. For let it be known that Wilmer H. Johnson, formerly editor of the North Wales Record, was the first man by whom we were regularly employed. Of course we remember picking strawberries for Nelson Snedeker for two cents per box; whitewashing for Asa Thomas at five cents per panel, and dropping corn for “Sam” Gordon at fifty cents per day [the farm that is today Parkside Place]. But our first salary was paid by Wilmer H. Johnson, and amounted to $2 per week.
We stayed six years during which time the salary was increased. We didn’t have to work for Wilmer Johnson. There were other opportunities beckoning, notably the sash factory, where the salary would have been $4, and the suspender factory where the salary for winding bobbins started at $4.50. But at that particular time the sash factory had earned the epithet of being a man-mangler, and the suspender factory was not certain whether it would stay in the town. So when Mr. Johnson waved his magic wand, and depicted the fame and emoluments of journalism, our surrender was unconditional—and we lived ever after happy. Beginning in knee pants, and starting our erudition on a soapbox.
It would be extravagant and unnecessary to say that we loved Mr. Johnson. We admired and honored him. This sentiment may be better appreciated when one thinks that McKinley was loved. So was Lee. [Theodore] Roosevelt is admired and respected. So was Grant. Then there was the disparagement in age and temperament between Johnson and the writer. As a matter of fact there was a time in our career when we feared him. For discipline and literary ability were his strangleholds. If Mr. Johnson made one mistake it was locating in what was then a small town, when a city daily at a handsome salary would have been glad to continue his services. His personality, in an executive capacity, could have earned him something splendid weekly if exerted on a force of one or two hundred men, instead of the three or four in the office at North Wales.
His influence was not exerted by gumshoes, nor gliding suddenly around corners, nor catching someone at a prank or lazy attitude. Nor was it accomplished by abuse or harangue. There was merely “something” which neither the youngest nor the oldest employ could dissect, but all stood for! “THE BOSS IS AROUND.” That is all. It was everyone’s intention to please him. The esprit de corps was fine. There was a loyalty and willingness that larger concerns would give thousands to establish. It was not his custom to reward or to punish. Best service he took for granted. Dereliction he seemed to overlook. There were no Christmas presents. But no one was “docked” for a day off now and then, either.
We do not recall that he had any questionable habits. He surely was not given to liquor, tobacco, games of chance—in short did not engage in any of the vices and superfluities of life. And while firmly established in religion, his name was not recorded on any of the local church records.
In the printing department nothing would “do” for a shift. It had to be plumb right. And therefore the North Wales Record was the standard for quality of paper, presswork, and “making the mails.” For a generation he was a foe to the ready-print and the plate service—but yielded toward the end. While cheaper labor could have been employed, he insisted upon making up every form of his four page weekly himself—always. And he started at $1.50 per year—and kept it there—even when Singerly reduced the Philadelphia Record to a cent, and all the other country weekly editors—even yet—give their best for a dollar a year. So that the North Wales Record with 1,500 circulation took in as many and a great deal more profitable dollars than the scrumptious dollar weekly with its far-heralded circulation of 2,000. Same as now.
As a writer Johnson shone. He could as neatly embroider a wedding, high school commencement, or Brunner’s Academy commencement as any man we have ever known. And he could vitriolize an event, or person, or issue that did not meet with his approval as scathingly—and at the same time popularize his own view—as any man we have ever known. For a battle according to “old school” ethics he was the most keenly eager editor we ever knew.
He pecuniarly backed his views, too. We have always had a suspicion that it took some borrowed money to conduct the Record’s campaign against Wanger for Congress, and that it took considerable more exchequer than the income of the paper to pay the special writer employed on the Record that summer and fall. And there was extreme joy—unholy or whole only, suit yourself—when Wanger was defeated, and Hallowell was elected. But Wanger and Johnson eventually made up, and Wanger was one of Johnson’s backers for the Harrisburg position which Johnson eventually landed [with the State Highway Department]. Even after he abandoned journalism for public life Mr. Johnson did not control a virile instinct to see his views in print, and the press of both Montgomery and Bucks, was kept under surveillance—and enriched—the past few years. If the candidacy of one of his friends needed support, a line or so came across from Harrisburg. If some historical or political fact needed correction or embellishment—that came. too. And if something clever deserved congratulations—they were forthcoming. And we imagine—by experience—that some of the most pleasant hours of his life were mingling with his brethren of the press in annual meetings, on the trains, showing them the sights of Harrisburg, or just a friendly sit-down wherever a pair would meetup. From his career, and our associations, we gather—what he probably never knew, and now never will know—that “Full many a shaft at random sent, Found mark the archer little meant.”