The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-11-10

Fast. The old Press is the Memory OF
/ the Sense. It's embalmed in the most
hallowcd associations. We 90 back to it
tenderly and lovingly, because in the
depths of its records there rests 50 much
that is dear to US. 1t is studded with lit
/ tic White head stones, telling here OF a
death, there of a marriage, sometimes OF
i ola birth. Dorcas, and Patience, an
Ruth, who were our mothers, have their
names inscribed there; aud so have Jona-
+. than, and Patrick, and Diederich, who
were our fathers. They were married,
and set sail upon the voyage oflife togeth-
4 or: and were it not for those undying
types they would hBve made the journey
and rotted their life away at unseen ports
or gone down into the sea of oblivion un-
noticed, with no requiem forever but the
ninstrelsy Of the ocean, which heeds not
whereof it sings. The old Newspaper
was the Charon to whom they came, and
who, with his plain old boat, set them
across the dark river offorgetfalness in
to the memory-!ighted realms which we
are now so wont to ramble among.
The old presses are gone, AMI here in
their stead we have those great Thought
executing" monsters with lungs Of iron
and breath of stoam, which belch forth
every day sheets enough to strew the
land like Vallambrosian leaves. The day
of small things is passed. The man who
sits at his table with one of those presses
at his command, can talk to an hundred
THOUSAND people. The lightning runs
hither and thither upon its errands. The
winds blow its messages to far countries,
and to the isles of the sea. The car runs
long and tireless upon its iron track with
its burthens, and the gallant post-horse
is its messenger to the hamlcts and cot
tages of the back woods. Even as yester-
day, the frigatcs of two powerful coun-
tries, forgetting their trade Of war, were
upon the great deep, peacefully laying
down an international highway whose
principal termini must be the Press.
Round and round the world, daily, it
heaves the continent Of men, washing
away their old rrejulices, even as the
tides of the sea rel through ocean after
ocean and keep them pure. Round and
round the world, like serpent with its
tail in its mouth, the emblem Of eternity"
IF the press be the great heart Which
daily sends thought and intelligence throb-
bing through the pulse of the civilized
world, belooves it not for us that we keep
it healthy and pure? Does that ocean
wave which the moon sends daily around
the globe, washing the shores of hemis-
pheres and seeking out the stagnant wa
tiers everywhere, come with fever and mi
asma in its touch? Does the blood which
is driven through these veins from the seat
Of life, bring poison with it! None the
less should the Press be pure. For every
one family in this land which gets its lite
nature from the shelves Of library, there
are an hundred who get it from the news
paper The prose and the poetry, the
politics and the news, the commercial and
market business Of the newspaper, are the
world of letters to more people than you
suppose. Tho pretending daily which
comes from your cities, and the steady
weekly which comes from the country,
/ have each their scholars. There is no pa
per, ever so grand or 50 humble, ever 50
high-toned OF. so wicked, which is not,
somewhere, the only printed sheet which
comes to home, and the standard by
which the inmates there judge of the world
of life and of letters. In the log cottage
out upon the prairies, or away in the woods
scattered along the highways and byways
of this State, the one paper comes regu-
larry /; and by the winter nights fireside,
or in the summer twilight, when the days
work is done, the husbandman and the
housewife, and the little ones who are
growing up to take their places and our
places, gather together and look through
it out into the broad world beyond. II
it be faulty in badly constructed or I'M
grammatical language, if it be shifting OF
uncertain in politics, better that the man,
calling himself an editor, who sent it, had
kept to his proper calling on the dock Of
in the stable If it be turb; with details
of wickedness, or sneering and careless o
morals. better that man had a milestone
around his neck and sunk 10 the bottom 0
the sea, for generation will be tainted
with its bad lessons. The little learner
will gather more Of the why's Of life iron
it than than from the pulpit or the distrc
school; and they will go forth, by and BY
and be III the workshop or in the Office
on the farm or in The Legislative Halls
what that newspaper has taught ther
are the ways Of men in those places.