The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1871-02-21


exhausted itself. @ss@ ~.
Wo "knew him well, HonArIo,D ana
felt the keenest sympathy for his situatloh;
Thai change which involved him in men'al
embarrassment has continued its career "
this day, and will continue in tue iu's
nnt,, little will be remembered OF the pure
and simple days when his dear anu 7t a
:. Romans" fourished. Governor SAtih
himself applied steam to the CONSERVATIVE
,,r;rc,n,es Of the earlier days OF the ke-
nnb,ic. Tie and HoLLEaAE and others
wore the advocates of Democratic ideas,,
which did not 50 well please the older Re-
nublicans; but those ideas prevailed. In
the march which they pushed q step fur
Their ahead Governor SMITH (HoLLEaAN is
long since dead) cannot be surprised to find
that there are those who go farther than
he and his contemporaries were willing to
50, and that he is become conservative.
Alas and alack that these things should
be But it can't be helped. The Ro-
mans are now nowhere. When we first
saw Governor SMITH he sat upon the box OF
superbly painted stage coach, to when
were harnessed four elegant and stout bays.
He had become the owner of a line oil
stages. He was "putting things through y
uron the impulsive, "go-ahead' spirit
which was evidently the motive power
that actuated him. He was giving people
then such expedition as they never knew
before. He finally had his lines from Wash
iireton to New Orleans, and he had for his
competitors such stagers as PORTER d
BELpES; PORTER, BOYD, EDMOND & Co
He was a milestone, rs it were, IN the
steadily advancing journey Of the nation
towards the goal which terminated IN the
supplanting OF the stage and It's gay team
l(who can forget them y by the detestable,
screaming railroad train. But no man rode
on the Governors stage without paying
We doubt whether there were "dead
heads" then. So with the railroads. They,
too, are not run gratis for travellers. And
so the press has learned from these public
Iconveyances the folly of conveying passen'
gers free of charge, whether under Roman,
or Grecian, or English names.
And so has the march of revolution pro.
crossed; the telegraph adding its mischiev'
Gus FRANKS to cxaggerate the metamorpho.
sis. Now men cannot pause to read long
disquisitions. Editors are forced to con-
slider them dead weight. No paper can live
that weighs down its columns with them.
The true Romans are dead, or but few sur
vivc. The world has no mind for them,
and they rail ut it in vain.
Indeed, the old theory Of the press was
lone-sided business. 1t made the editor an
lass. whose panniers-under the delus1on
of the liberty of the press-were the recep-
tacle OF everything the caprice Of indivld-
uals led them to pitch into them. The press
is indeed free. Every man can print what
he plcases. The press docs not belong to
editors. 1t is to be had ny anybody, and to
be employed for printing anything. But it
does not follow that an editor who has, by
his taste and style and energy, won the ap-
proval Of large concoursc Of readers,
shall spread before them anything an essaylst
| NAV bring to him and demand the publica-
| ton Of upon the pretcxt that the liberty
| of the press" backed by the Eagle. demands
that it shall be published. Certainly not.
Everybody has the right to erect his press
and print what he pleases, but he has no
right to compel another man to print what
he does not choose to print, under the pain
of the dfspleasure of the Goddess of Lib
ertv, with the endorsation of the Eagle
upon her decision.
Indeed, the revolution is complete. If
there ever was time when it was just that
editors should be ut the mercy of cores
pondents, that time has passed away. Ed
itors have rights-So have their readers.
These rights infringe nobody elSe's. Good
bye, dear Romans-good-bye, dear simple
age. You are gone forever.