The weekly north Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1857-1867, 1866-06-13
WHOLE NO. 5O4,

!, say that the EDITOR is superior to all o
them in the range of his influence and tn,
D value of the results derived by society from
; his labors.
Q BY an Editor I do not mean time.
serving ninny who purchases printing
ofhcc to manufacture commercial centres
out OF ground evidently intended for thu
: production of cabbage-onc, owned, bod,
} and soul by spectators in unapproachablt
l watcr-lots, or impossible railroad schemes
Nor is it he who points pen with malice
toward those who exercise the Cod -giver
right of condemning craven like himself
nor yet is it the man (pardon me Humani
ty y who sells the independence of his
J thoughts for the paltry consideration of of
ficlal position or the menial reward of par
ty patronage. Such animals are not Ed
ltors in the true meaning of the term
They are quill-driving shysters who have
crawled into the profession and befoulcd
the holy of holies with the polluting slime
of their political villniny, their personal
classic Partington, their "moral turpen
tine" Julius Cesar Hannibal, once tho
sable orator of the N. y Picayune, called
his room by the cuphonious and odorifer-
GUS title of "Skunkto Skunktorum''-the
title is quite expressive of the den of an
editorial blackguard. Men of this stamp
have no more estimation of the place thew
occupy than had Speeds dog an apprccia-
ton of the sacredess of Madame Silvia's
parlor. AS well might the boor of Cen
trail Africa be entrusted with the easel of a
Reynolds or the delicate workmanship of
! finaSt tt.hr orr al Al
a press. ..t
An Editor is superior to all other pro-
fessional men in the usefulness of his la
bors and in the range of his influence.
This proposition, even if it were indefensi-
BILE, might be pardoned its apparent ego
tlsm by our rivals, on the ground that hay
Ing. exhausted panegyric in columns of
praise for everybody else, we should be
tive occasions like the present, to ''puff"
ourselves! But the proposition can be
maintained, without thus begging the
question. What, | pray you, was society
until the types of Germany began to click
their monotone upon the social and politi-
cal systems of Europe? True, there were
in Greece, and in many nations of the
middle and succeeding ages, but they were
almost invariably banished or poisoned by
the butcher-heroes who more truly repre
sented an uncultivated people. Shakes
peare puts into the mouth Of one of his
characters, Learning comes by instinct
but we fail to see any veri6cation of this
Dogberrian axiom, in History or in obser-
vation. Man, of all creatures, knows the
least ut birth in fact he seems to have no
ar oil thn .~>P.~ Al
rolling from four-story window being as
President of the U. S.. as he is capable of
choosing. At that period he is emphati-
cally KnoU-nOthiny. His susceptibilties
mentally are, however, correspondingly
that much in excess of the instinct race
These capabilities are valueless without
instruction, and until printing was inven-
ted, the means of thou ght-intercommuni-
cation were too slow to be effective in
SIMULTANEOUS influences-the great secret,
by tho way, of the power of the press.
A ship-load Of bark manuscript contain
ing a copy of Hesiod or of Homer, was too
expensive and unwieldy to be sent about
the Mediterranean coast for perusal; and
there were so few who could read at all
that circulating library of the ancient
kind would have cooked more fish than it
would have evolved ideas. With the COM
ing of the Types the shadows resting on
the ri ghts of the masses began to flee. The
growth of printing improvements set pco-
pie to reasoning, because they were now
supplied with authoritative books on all
subjects which had occupied the minds of
the bark or paPyrus editors. Newspapers
followed as necessity, and though they
were generally venalized by the powerful,
yet enough truth seired through to enable
the oppressed to got something Of an idea
of their condition and how to change it.
Revolutions resulted. The press was muz-
zlcd or silenced for brief periods, but at
length the infant prodigy. became too 81
gantic to be throttled: It gradually as
sumed the important station to which it
was entitled, and to-day it stands, on Earth,
the maker and unmaker of all other insti-
tutions which man controls.
'Tis not the talent of the editor that gives |
him superiority of influence. He does not |
know more than the Divine OF the Jurist
but he is compelled to know something Of |
every matter which affects society: This
it is which plants him in the very front
rank of Learning-knorledge is better
word however; because editors, in scho-
lastic sense, are seldom learned. But |
further; the influence of the editor is great
CT in that he has more voices than all other
professions combined. One blast from the
bugle Of Roderick Dhu brought hundreds
of clans-men to the frightened vision of
Fitz James of Stirling, but that bugle
blast, though potent in the range of its
limited ''circtlation," was ''small eai-
tom when compared with an editorial
slogan reprinted on the brain of Two
HUNDRED THOUSAND readers One issue
of the Times, the Herald, or the Tribune,
saying naught of the colossal voice of the
London "Thunderer,n will tell more upon
public opinion than would all the bugles
that ever walked the heaths and moors of
Scotia. The Press, gentlemen, is the
MASTER of TIE WORLD! lie whose fingers
prepare its matter may regard himself as
one of the Genii whose labors are telling
for good or i'll upon the destiny of man.
BE careful, then, to have your minds school
ed to the Importance Of your mission and
your hearts imbued with Kindness toward
your fellows. Ideas are born everywhere,-
in allranks of thinkers; but they must pass
through the crucible of the press and re-
,eive the condemnation or approval Of tho
editorial censor. If your theories are not
ndorscd by the Man of Types, in vain will
be your advocacy of them before the pco-
pie; these look to him as the guardian of
heir rights, the redresser of their wrongs,
md, thank God they are not often disap-
pointed. From the smallest paragraph on
he market, up through the grades of in
ercst, to the tallest criticism on the foreign ,
II domestic policy of the Government, the
,agle eye Of the populace scans the columns
If good newspaper, and it rarely happens
hat the reader does not contract opinions
rom its constant pcrusal.
In political warfare much blood is warm
ID by the brilliant, and sometimes not so
brilliant displays, of our legion of orators;
,ut observation teaches that the silent in
,tructinn of the press does more execution ,