Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1873-07-10
Progress of journalism.

The following is an extract from the
valedictory address delivered before the
Michigan Press Association by Presi-
dent John N. Ingerso1l, of theShiaa0as-
see american, at the annual meeting
held at Detroit June 1S, 1873:
In my library are volumes of the
old National I1atelligencer, on which I
worked as journeyman printer, and in
which I find, six days after the election
of 1886, the first hint that Mr.. Van
Buren had probably been chosen to the
Presidency !; and the latest news from
Europe is announced by packet only
sixteen days from Liverpool. But now,
through the ene4Hy of the representatives
of the press and the agency of the mag
netic telegraph, the choice of President
is read in the papers on the day after the
election, and the eager comments of the
London press. just forty years ago I
was an apprentice in an Office adjoining
the New York Journal of Commerce,
then the leading commercial newspaper
in that city. Two men did the press
hand-press, with an old-fashioned buck
skin roller. To-day, all through New
York Printing-House Square and its
vicinity, the pedestrian hears the under
ground jar and roar of mighty steam
presses, each of which costs $50, 600,
and contains Ia, 78O distinct pieces, in
bolts, screws, nuts, pulleys, springs,
pins, keys and rollers, with over 29, 600
yards of tape and blankets-the whole
press weighing Al, ,514 pounds, and print
ing "a, 900 impressions hourly. Be
sides the old journal of Commerce,
there were in New York, up to 1880,
other old-fashioned "blanket-sheet
newspapers, with which the reader
oooconoI 1,io ooffoo m. Aouoro1
his evening cup of tea. At this time,
the "penny papers began to take the
place of the so-called respectable six
pennies" The competition was short
and decisive-and the lively, crisp
penny-sheet became the paper of the
period-though, truth to say, the Jour
nal of Commerce still exists and lives
Gas is truly said) "becase the older men
died out of it. =" In those days newspa-
pers were lugubriously solemn, "with
no fippant wings to disturb the prosy
flow of journalistic inanity." There was
no telegraph prior to 1913, no ocean
steamships till period still later, and
no associated press organization to SIM
plify the process of obtaining news.
But, for moment, let us go back half a
century further-and fifty years is but
a brief period-for q still q greater con-
trast. I hold in my hand a copy of
" The Country Journal and the POatgh-
keepSie ADVERTISER" of August 2, 1888.
The printers whose modest skill put to-
gether these pages have long slept in
their graves, but the story which their
handiwork preserved will live on, to the
immortal glory of those Who espoused
through its columns the principles that
secured the birth of a republic. Our
chief interest, however, is found in the
contrast which this paper presents to
the journalism of to-day, and herein fur
nishing the most comprehensive Illus
tration of the progress of the interven-
ing years. Looking at this time-stained
paper, and then upon the great journals
that now daily feed the popular mind
with everything worthy of notice from
the four quarters of the globe, it is
difficult to feel that the journalism of
to-day has not reached the limit of its
possibilities in all that pertains to the
perfection of the art, the development
of mind, and the dissemination of in
telligence. It may be an open question
whether the improvements of the present
day preceded the public mind, or
whether the popular wants demanded
the improvements certain it is, as
Victor Hugo quantity remarks, " the
diameter of the press is the diameter of
civilization. The press is force, be-
cause it is intelligence. 1t is the living
clarion, and loudly announcest he ad-
vent of Justice. Holding no account of
night, except to salute the dawn, it be-
comes day and warns the world"