New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-07-14
THE REPUBLICAN, PRESS CONVENTION

When the present Republican Press
Convention was first summoned to meet
in this city, serious apprehensions were
felt by rejecting members of the party
that the design of the meeting was to be
more of political than of a journalistic
nature. Hopes were entertained, now
ever, that when the members met and
exchanged views, as they usually do be-
fore proceeding with their organization,
better purpose would be developed, and
that the representative newspaper men
of the body would be allowed to mould
the convention into a means of benefting
the Republican press of the State. As
we now have some forty republican
newspapers printed in Louisiana, and as
these journals are capable of welding an
immense influence, both for their own
and for the public good, if their ideas
and purposes could be harmonized, it
was thought that this idea could be made
to become the central determination of
the convention. What is a newspaper
assembly for if not to benefit newspapers
Unfortunately, our original apprehen-
sions were realized at the very outset.
Immediately that the convention met it
was apparent that the Press Convention
was merely personal conclave, SO far as
the majority was concerned. And up to
the hour of adjournment last evening the
entire question before the convention was
matter of redundant politics as foreign
to the real purposes of press meeting as
it would have been in base ball pow-wow.
The press is not represented nor defended,
but rather is it betrayed and debauched
by being made the instrument of men who
neither understand its duty nor appreciate
its mission. Editors are flying about the
convention as tails to kites, allowing the
mighty lever which they control to be
used for their own and for the general
undoing.
When the Republican party enacted the
printing law it did not intend to create a
disorganizing element in its own midst,
ferocious to devour its friends if it could
not control them. 1t simply strained the
hberality of the State to found and sup
port public press which might correct
the prejudices of society and reform the
passions of the hour by explaining and
defending the treatment which the nation
was imposing upon the State, in order to
recover it from the disasters of the war
The allowance was liberal and the provi-
sion ample. Perhaps it was too much So
for out of indulgence and fairness there
sometimes grows up disposition to
tyrannize and to depart from the line of
duty. If the Republican press had
recognized the wisdom and the provi-
dence of the legislation which en-.
abled them to start into existence,
we should have had an exchange
which would have been a pride to the
State and source of power to the party
and to the State. We should have had
editors working for the unity of the party
and the success of its principles, we'll paid
for their services, and respectable by vir-
tue Of their honesty and ability The
politicians of the day would have been
beholden to them, aud their voice would
have been potential instead of being what
it is now, mere echo. The patronage
which they receive would have belonged
to themselves, and then mayhap would
have been held in the interest of the press |
instead of some blatant master Said
Mr.. Carter, yesterday, in one of his indig-
nant suggestions: " Ny patronage shall not
90 to the press qchich abuses me-" What |
law or what sentiment of the community |
made Mr.. Carter master of the patronage
which belongs to the State? Who gave |
to this officer the right to make his per-
sonal praise the measure of reward |
for giving out the laws to
be printed What constituency in |
the State demands that the official organ |
shall print panegyrics of Carter and the
laws of the State side by side? And what |
Independent editor who heard this man |
assert his rights over the newspapers in
the State but would have rebelled at being
thus publicly proclaimed abroad as a
bondsman of his own agent. Neither
Governor Warmoth, Lieutenant Governor
Dunn nor Speaker Carter have right to
impose any conditions personal to them
selves in the granting of State patronage |
to public printers, because the patronage |
belongs to the people, and should be used
in their interest. How can this be done
if the editor is mortgaged to the officer?
And when these gentlemen, singly or col
assume to trade upon this print
ing law, they turn that to their private
advantage which every Republican editor
should resent as an encroachment upon
the liberty of the press, and direct sub
version of his own Independent action.
We have spoken plainly because we feel
deeply and sadly upon this subject. The
power and dignity of the press are in
volyed, and it becomes us to warn our
confreres that they may be doing in haste
what they will repent at leisure. Our
interests are at stake as well as theirs and
their defeat becomes our disaster. We
are mutually interested in success, and in
our counsel if the words of friendship
are clothed in the language of anger our
good intent should be accepted to cover