Litchfield enquirer., 1873-08-14
THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPER AND
 THE TAX ON KNOWLEDGE.

The telegraph has, ln measure, equal
 ized the condition of newspapers in this
 country, and prevented the absorbtion of the smaller by the large. The same gen.
 eral news of the world comes to every pa
 per that can pay for it, whether it is pub
 lished in the city or country. The advan-
 tage that city newspapers have is in their
 advertisements, which enable them to pay for news more in detail, and to expend
 more on every department of the journal.
 Consequently the city paper ought to be, if it has any brains to manage it, the bet ter paper; it's owners can afford to put more into it. The proportion of weak newspapers, however, in the cities to the good ones, is about the same as it is in the country. Some of the ablest news papers and the most influential are out side of the great cities; 1t has always been
 so, and so it must be in a healthy condi-
 tion of political life.
 We print elsewhere an article from the Old and New, for August, which is worthy the attention of politicians, editors, and the people generally. So far as it relates to newspaper exchanges, and to free local circulation of newspapers, we have noth- ing to add It is true that the congress men took two revenges for loss of their franking privilege-they stole back pay, and they hit at the newspapers by prohib- it1ng free exchanges and free county pa pers. We have word to add, however, on the relative importance of the city and country press in our political society. The American newspaper has two off ces; one is to collect and disseminate news, the other is to express and keep
 alive healthy national and local public opinion. It is evident that if all the local papers were either enfeebled or absorbed in few great dailies at the large centres,
 there would be no such thing as an ex- pression of local opinion, and there would soon be no such thing as independent To- cal opinion in politics or anything else all would look to the centres for their opinions as well as for news It needs no argument to show that this would be in no very long time, fatal to the political health of the country. Neither Washing ton or New York are good advisers for the country at large. Every state, every county, every town must have it's self-de- pendent life and opinion if our govern ment is not to become a centralized af-
 fair.
 The late Mir. Greeley was always advis- ing country editors to pay no attention to anything but the affairs of their immedi- ate neighborhood, but to hunt up and publish the least details concerning that, and so, as he said to make the paper in- dispensable to every family in the town or country. The advice was directly in the interest of the large city papers. The advice has been, however, very extensive ly followed and it has gone far to ruin the country press. Where it has been faith fully followed 1t has made the local news
 paper little else than contemptible in the eyes of those who take 1t.
 The country newspaper, of the sort commended, is usually made up of weak stories and stale anecdotes and literary
 extracts on the outside pages. Within, we see column after column of industri- ously prepared s1ocal news, large part of which is of no mortal consequence to anybody on the planet. Somebody has
 painted his house, or put an ell on it, or 1 erected a new barn, or surrounded his
 garden with picket fence. Somebody,
 whose movements are of no interest to anyone except his immediate family who
 already know them, has gone west for a
 two weeks trip, or he has ''arrived" home.
 Everybody's business is spied out, every body's personal affairs are turned wrong
 side out. With these petty and insignif-
 cant details almost the entire paper is talk
 en up. And the effect is as bad upon the
 community as it is upon the newspaper. Very little general news of the world is given, and there is scarcely any careful
 and original discussion of the great ques-
 tions of the day-questions in which the
 country people are just as much interested
 as the city people. {
 As first consequence, the local news paper sinks into insignifcance, and the l city paper must be had for news and for opinions also. The true rule for the To-
 cal paper is to give to local news only it's proper share of space, and to give in ad-
 dition as much of the movement of the great world as 1t can; and above all, to
 maintain local expression of free and
 matured opinion upon all matters of large
 public interest
 l In theory, the opinions of the city pa Epers should be no more weighty, in our
 distributed political and social life, than
 the opinions of the country press. Read
 ing people. literary people, scholars, poli-
 ticlans of greatest prominence in affairs,
 men and women of high social character,
 live in the country, in towns and small cities, as well as in the city. They used
 to express themselves more in their local
 newspapers than they do of late years.
 Not many years ago, indeed, the great
 parties were led by country leaders who
 used country organs.
 As g matter of fact, too, the editorial opinions of city papers are of no more