White Cloud Kansas chief. [volume] (White Cloud, Kan.) 1857-1872, 1858-12-02
The Country Press.

| he EN- DarraSSmentS oil the country press
are manifold, but none are more unendu-
rable than the invidious comparisons in
stituted sometimes by ignorant persons.
and sometimes by persons who are merely
inconsiderate, between the country and
fcity press. The publisher of country
paper, with circulation as often below
as above thousand, is censured and in
suited because he does not publish a
mammoth sheet, or refuse to publish adj
vertisements, or if he will not print q
blanket-sheet, and must have advertise
ments, he is urged to put the price of his
paper down to less than living rates. We
cannot compete In price with papers that
have fifty and one hundred thousand sub
scrlbers We cannot give as much nor
as great a variety of reading matter as
such papers contain in fact, with list
of thousand subscribers, we could not
publish as good paper as many of the
large city weeklies, if we were paid FIVE
dollars a year, in advance, for each one
of those thousand subscribers. Their
facilities and advantages are of a charac
ter wholly beyond the reach of purely
local press. Besides, their nett profits
on their heavy subscription lists, even at
a dollar year, greatly exceed ours in
the aggregate, while they charge and get
twenty-five to thirty-five cents line for
advertisements, cash. They make hun
bred dollars where we realize one, and
amass wealth, while we Of the country
press grow poor. We trust the people
of the rural districts" will yet learn to
have some sympathy with their home pa
pers. Not be so much inclined to exact
impossibilities, where publishers are evil
IDENTIFY straining every nerve to fulfill their
obligations to their patrons and the inter-
ests of their immediate locality. There
should be reciprocity of feeling between
the parties, and the obligations to advo-
cate and maintaia, should be mutual.
There are, however, too many men who
only measure things by the dollars or
cents required to obtain them. If they
can get paper in New York for one
third less than they can at home, they
will send their money abroad, instead Of
doing good with It among their neighbors.
1t matters but little to them what the pa
per contains, only that it bears the i'm
preston of linked types. Its contents
may not interest them half as much as a
paragraph of q dozen lines of home news
but then they get vast quantity: and it
don't matter about the quality. Like the
John Chinaman, they buy the biggest
pair Of boots they can get for their mon
ey, without caring whether their purchase
fits or not. They are so afraid they can't
get their moneys worth, if they take a
home paper, that they prefer to sponge
off their more reasonable, neighbors, and
invest in city publication. Such men
never help home enterprizes-never build
towns. or take a part in improvements
that spring up around them. The fear
of spending dime and losing sight oil
it, causes them to clutch it so tight that
the eagle screams with pain. For such
persons country paper is not good
enough. They do not seem to consider
that it is, comparatively, better than
many large city sheets. when the circum-
stances by which it is surrounded are
considered-his inability to employ the
talent and labor that can be devoted. to
more favored journals. because he has
neither the means nor the encouragement
of future reward to Justify him in extra
ordinary efforts to cater TO the tastes and
wishes Of his readers. But the summing
up of the matter is this: Liberal, reason
able. public spirited, patriotic men will
sustain their home papers the churi, the
drone and the envious wilmer, will never
take it as long as they can beg from their
whole-souled neighbors, or until they can
get it for less than cost. May Heaven
have mercy on their narrow souls
TruNsJaH Democrat. alis