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FOREWORD

 I first HEARD the On the Pan story about 30 years ago when a veteran newsroom hand at the Providence Journal regaled us with the yarn during a gab session. She later produced for me a typed copy of the column. Some years later, I used it in teaching a course in journalism, ethics. More recently, in hobby printing, I came across it again and decided to make it a project. That's what it has been for almost ten years and about that many false starts.

For help with background on the News I am indebted to the Rhode Island Historical Society and to flesh out the personalities I leaned heavily cat The Providence Journal: 150 Years, a history. The late Charles H. Spilman, a coauthor of that book and my former boss responded patiently to my many inquiries. I am grateful, as well, to the direct descendant, who did not wish to be named, of one of those mentioned (not favorably!) in the story but who acceded, with patrician tolerance, to a request for a brief interview.

Thanks are due to skilled printing hobbyist Schuyler
Shipley of Dittmer Mo., for Linotyping the On the Pan
column and to Kingston neighbor Robert Jordan for the
sketches of the two principals. Suffice it to say that those
persons named in the column but not otherwise identified
were men prominent in the state's industrial and political power structure.

W.L.D