Litchfield enquirer., 1873-08-14

the country papers. A large part of the editorial writing in the city papers is the product of of young fellows of no great experience or judgment or any vast cul. ture, whose dicto would be ridiculous il
 they were not thundered forth from g great machine, which is big enough to give sort of importance to those on
 board. It is common enough to find OF city papers men who have failed to make
 their mark in the country. The great city daily is an immense gatherer of news.
 Some of our American newspapers are not
 excelled III the world as mirrors of its
 daily life; they are wonderful produc. tlons, and we have reason to be proud oi
 them. Yet when they assume, by reason of their size and circulation, a dictatorial
 and magisterial tone towards the govern.
 ment, and the churches. and the colleges,
 and in all the realm of politics, art, and literature, they are only exhibitors of i'm
 pudence on large sclale; and if their claims are meekly submitted to by sub-
 servient country press, they advance to be lntolerable tyrants, destructive of all free,
 broad thought and action. The arro-
 gance of some of them is amusing to those who know who they are who stand behind the machine.
 We will close by saying that the rich
 city papers, with their ability to hire the
 best talent, and to enlist in their service
 the best minds of the age, have right to
 such leadership as superior ability gives
 anywhere; but it is none the less the duty
 of the country journals to maintain en- tire independence and the highest possi-
 ble standard. Courant.
 We give below the article from s'Old < New." referred to by the Courant;
 The law prohibiting free exchanges and free circulation to newspapers is tax on knowledge, direct attack on intelligence and literature.
 Men dislike to have privileges taken away; and, if they can obtain no compen-
 sation for what they are deprived of, they are pretty likely to try to take something away from the depriver. Thus Congress, feeling that public opinion demanded the .discontinuance of the franking privilege, discontinued it, and took two compensa- tions,-one an increase of their own pay; and the other. retributive deprivation, namely. the discontinuance of free ex- changes and free home circulation of newspapers; for the newspapers had stir red up this very public opinion. Of these two discreditable performances, the for mer IS an co post f0ctO measure, which Is wrong on the same principle that forblds penalties to be inflicted on crimes com mitted before the making of the law. This principle is simply, Laws may not take men by surprise. Even a wrong g-do- CT must have ample notice that he is to be punished. In like manner should paymaster have notice what he is o-pay his servant; but our congressional "ser- wants of the people" propose, it would ap- pear, both to carry the bag, and to help themselves to what is put therein. It is morally wrong. as we'll as politically inex- pedient, that 8 congressman should have the power of altering his own pay, for the same reasons that have caused it's abso- lute prohibition to the President; and the Constitution should be amended so as to prevent it in future, by adding to the first sentence of the first paragraph of the sixth section of the first article the words gwen below in Italics, which would cause that sentence to read as follows: ''The senators and representatives shall receive compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States; and avhich shaU neither be increased or 0in,inished .for any senator or representative during
 he period .for a0hich he shall hare been elected" This would allow full swing to patriotic restitutions by those feeling themselves oyerpaid.
 There are sufficient and substantial req sons for the re-enactment of the repealed free exchange and free home circulation laws. This repeal is positive advance in tendency-already obvious, and, for various reasons, bad-towards an extinc- tion of local newspapers to make room for large monopolizing city newspapers Accordingly, anybody who has observed the opinions of the press on the repeal will recollect, that, the larger and more powerful the paper, the more decidedly did it approve the repeal It has long been an established policy of the great city papers to set forth the duty of the local papers to scrape together their local news, and leave great affairs to great men. It is natural that a city newspaper mana ager should covet 8 large circulation and great influence. It is very obvious policy to make the country papers mere local re- porters for him. The only thing he would like better would be to discontinue them entirely, add their circulation to his, and substitute local correspondent, or occa- sional reporter, for the local editor A curious phenomenon, of late frequently observed in divers quarters, is another instance of the same policy: Newspaper after newspaper, 'local" or provincial" will be found, having in its telegraphic column an item like the following: The New York Blowgun' of tomorrow will say so and so" and then follows para graph, not of news, but of editorial. This, of course. has direct tendency to discredit the local paper; for the reader says, "Ah! then the important thing is not what my editor says, but what The New York Blowgun man says. guess I'll stop my paper, and take The Blowgun.'" There never was more in- genious device to induce men to cut their own throats for the good of somebody else
 The additional expense imposed by the repeal or fifty, or hundred, or two hundred and fifty dollars, or more, a year-is far more important in the coun try than in the city. Money costs in the country, but time in the city. The pow erful city paper with capital of mil lion or three millions does not mind thou sands of dollars more or less; but, in the country, no man-farmer, lawyer, or edi- tor-can afford to waste or to lose sin gle dollar.
 But there is far more important con- sideration. The policy of centralizing power is the one anti-American policy The policy of maintaining numerous small centres of power IS the one heart and soul and life of our American social and political order. De Tocqueville's fame rests, in great measure, on his recogni- ton of the importance of our local centres of political action. The secret of the i'll success of all the French republics is sim ply that they have no town-meetings. The local newspaper is the American in-