According to his sister Marcelline, Hemingway covered "fires, fights and funerals, and anything else not important enough for the other more experienced reporters....
``He met a movie star and he wrote me three pages of raves about her....''
-- At the Hemingways, Marcelline Hemingway Sanford

He learned at The Star that professional reporters stated the way things are. They did not ramble on about how things might be if this or that were true; they declared what was. The idea was to tell the readers what had happened, for first a man had to go out and find what was happening.
-- Ernest, Peter Buckley

Hemingway had been working the police beat from Monday, March 4, 1918, until Wednesday morning. The Star office at police headquarters, fourth and Main streets, was quiet.
On that Wednesday morning, Hemingway and (cop reporter Bill) Moorehead were in the police station when the call came in: ``Riot! A riot across from the Paseo Paradeway on Euclid!''
``I called (assistant city editor Pete) Wellington,'' Moorehead said. ``He wanted to know if Hemingway was with me. I said, `He's sitting here on the desk.' Pete said, `Take him along.' ''
They caught a cab, and went to Fourteenth and Euclid. There a mob of striking laundry workers was hollering and throwing stones. Few policemen were on the scene and only one patrol wagon.
The strikers were angry. They tipped and shook the wagon. Those arrested taunted police. But, for a while, it grew quiet, as if the police had things under control. Then someone threw a stone at a policeman.
``There he is! That's him!'' Hemingway shouted to police and pointed out the man. The mob turned and started after the young reporter.
``Let's get the hell out of here'' Moorehead shouted at Hemingway. ``The police can't protect themselves, much less us!''
The two of them ran to 15th Street (Truman Road) and caught a slow-moving street car, and the strikers followed on foot, threatening them with stones and fists.
Shortly, the mob began to lag and when it was safe, they got off to call the story into the The Star. Later, Wellington sent another team to cover the strike for fear the laundry workers might attack Moorehead and Hemingway. (``Laundry Car Over Cliff'')

In Ernest Hemingway, Cub Reporter, Ted Brumback, another rookie reporter for The Star, gives this account of the Union Station incident behind ``Throng at Small Pox Case:''
On the stone floor lay a man on a stretcher. He was bundled in blankets. The crowd had formed a circle around him at a respectful distance, for his face was broken out in ugly sores. There seemed to be no one attending him. He was moaning a little.
``What's the trouble here?'' Hemingway demanded.
``He's got a contagious disease,'' someone in the crowd replied. ``No one dares touch him. Some one sent for an ambulance.''
``Why is he left alone like this? Isn't anyone in charge of him?''
``Two men took him off the train and brought him here. Then they went back on the train. I suppose the man's a pauper and couldn't afford to pay anyone to take care of him.''
``How long since they sent for an ambulance?''
``About half an hour.''
Hemingway swore. ``Why, I wouldn't treat a dog like that. What's the matter with you people? Why didn't some of you carry him out on the stretcher and put him in a taxi and send him to the General Hospital? The man's got smallpox and will die if not given care immediately. I know what smallpox is because I'm a doctor's son and recognize the symptoms. Who'll help me get him out of here?''
At the word of smallpox, the crowd retreated. No one offered to help. Hemingway became angry. ``What's the matter with you yellow bunch anyway? Are you going to stand there and let a man die?''
When still no one made a move, he himself picked up the man in strong arms and carried him out of the station. Then he ordered a taxicab and took him personally to the General Hospital, charging the expense to The Star.
-- Ernest Hemingway, Cub Reporter, Matthew Bruccoli

In 1917 (Kansas City) was a growing town whose tough frontier status was still a living memory, full of sin and crime and a cynical attitude to the law even among the magistrates, and its Twelfth Street had so many prostitutes that it was nicknamed Woodrow Wilson Avenue (a piece at any price). Ernest did not engage in either brawls or bough dalliance; he was a mere observer of the world of tough action.
-- Ernest Hemingway and His World, Anthony Burgess

The new cub, assigned to the General Hospital run, was an elusive one for the city editor to find. He seemed to be riding the ambulance most of the time. But in a few weeks he had discovered some lax methods in accident cases and written a series of stories for the paper. Hemingway's pride soared until he saw his pieces in print. A copyreader had edited out all his favorite touches. Hemingway blamed Wilson Hicks, the same Wilson Hicks who later became managing editor of Life magazine but who then was a struggling employee of The Star trying to keep clothed on his $85 a month salary. Hemingway, smarting under the sting of having his copy cut, noted Wilson's threadbare trousers, and at once named him ``Lackpants Hicks.''
-- Dale Wilson, letter to The Kansas City Star, June 29, 1966

(NOTE: By 1952, Wilson Hicks was executive editor of Life magazine. He bought magazine rights to The Old Man and the Sea for $40,000.)

Ernie wrote that he had decided not to go to college; he liked newspaper work. Then, early in 1918, came a letter from Ernest addressed to the whole family. It was full of jubilation. Ernest told us that he had been assigned to interview a group of Italian Red Cross officers who came to the United States to recruit volunteers for the American Red Cross ambulance corps in Italy. When he interviewed them for The Star, he learned that the Red Cross was only accepting men who were not eligible for the United States Services and the draft. They took men in general good health who were unable to fulfill the physical requirements of our own country's armed services.
``Could a man with poor vision in one eye get in?'' he asked them, he told us later. The Italians answered in the affirmative.
-- At the Hemingways, Marcelline Hemingway Sanford

(NOTE: On Feb. 22, page 13 of The Star carried this headline: ``Red Cross Calls Men.'' Also needed, listed in fine print: ``Four ambulance drivers for Italy.'' Some Hemingway histories maintain that Hemingway and Ted Brumback, also a Star reporter, intercepted a news story calling for American Red Cross volunteers in France and Italy, and applied before the story ran. If so, they were smart to do so; a follow-up story two days later reported that 205 men and women answered the Red Cross call.)