Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-11-16
JONESBOROUGH,
Typographical Aspirations.

Typographical Aspirations.
In reviewing the somewhat volumiDous
list of applicants for legislative considera-
tion before the present General Assembly,
it would be an act of professional discour-
tesy to ignore the claims of an old friend
and fellow -patriot--our illustrious confrere
! from Hawkins, the Hon. j. White-ex-
Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of
the Montezumas at Matamoras, ex- member
of the Thirty-sixth General Assembly, ex-
candidate for Congress, ex-candidate for
Door-keeper or Clerk at the capitol, and
present and prospective candidate for the
office of Public Printer. Now, Jim"
as he is affectionately dubbed by his fami-
liars, is not bad sort of fellow in his way
A wag of infinite jest, abonnding in anec-
dote and story. genial by nature and con-
vivial by long apprenticeship to the public
service, he combines the bon homie of the
man about town with the Senatorial gray-
ty of the statesman bowed by weighty
considerations of matters of State. That
he is candidate for. admission to the
select circle of Public Typographers ought
not to quicken our jealousy or to lessen
him in our esteem, and it does not If
there be any room for doult that he is one
of the most accomplished printers since
the days of Gutenberg or Faust or
Franklin, let himself and not the public
have the benefit of the doubt. What
James dosen't know about printing would
make Mr. Greeley's boastful requirements
in the role of Agriculture pale TO insigni.'
ficance by comparison. Neither should
we be ungratefully unmindful, in looking
backward through the vista of departing
years, how, as mere tyros in the ''art
preservative" we were wont to derive in
spiration and acquire knowledge by draw.
ing upon the large experience of our senior
disciple in that school, when "Jeems'
was, peradyenture, one of the fastest COM
positOrs of his time. when the incredible
number of thousands of .'ems'' he used,
of course, to set up the g strings" of in
Vulnerable '.galleys" he used to pile upon
the racks" the fat" and the "solid
takes" that used to disappear before bis
magic prestidigitation, were the marvel of
that silurian period aud himself sort of
topographic phenomenon. We believe
and let it be recorded to his credit, that
Judge White makes no secret now, in the
zenith OF his glory as statesman and
publicist, of the humber station from
obscurlty to illustrious name aud fame, in
defiance of those " twin jailors of the giant
nIind-low birth and IRON fortune" He
has neither forgotten the art Preserva-
tive" nor the craft" and his recognition
of the power and influence of that mighty
engine The Press exemplifed
abuudantly in the fact that he is suspected
of being the publisher of newspaper in
nearly every county in the State-a cir
cumstance which his modesty would fain
conceal, but an efiuigence which, in the
very nature of things, could not long be
hid under bushel. While Mr.. .Forney
was vaingloriousiy paradiny before the
world the existence of bis 1.-TWO papers,
both daily" the Hon. j. w. would have
scorned to make a virtue of the existence
of his seventeen or eighteen newspapers
all weekly, with which at any moment he
could have sent the thunders of an en-
lightened craftsmanship reyerherating
along the cumberland crags and Tennessee
bottoms from Carter to Shelby, to the i'm
minent humiliation of tyranny, and the
crash of empires and the wreck of worlds.
Mr.. White does not set any type now.
But he knows how it is himself, and he
can have it done as handily as any printer
of enlarged experience, and as equitably
adjust the enormous profits thereof. Hav-
ing, with self-sacrifce the most COM
mendable, consented, to the detriment of
a large and increasing private business.
to come out from his retirement to offer
to serve his country in her crisis. as Con-
gresham, for the miserable pittance of
eight dollars daY /; subsequently as Door
keeper or Clerk of the capitol, for two
dollars and half and finally for Public
Printer, for only so much as his services
may be deemed actually worth in a close
lobbying of the General Assembly, such
devoted patriotism can hardly be decently
ignored by the peoples representatives,
to say nothing of the loss the State may
possibly sustain, in the absence of his ex-
perienced supervision in the matter of
" ems and tokens" or in having it's
printing done for it by an ex-Minister
Plenipotentiary and an ex-candidate for
Congress. 1t is at least one instance in
which the Office would seek the man and
not the man the Office Let the search
proceed, and yirtur meet its own reward.
-Bonner.