Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1874-07-31
Beecher ON Journalists.

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Beeoher ON Journalism.
Extracts from his Address before tho New York
Editorial Conventional
l count myself fortunate to be
present again as an editor, and it
carries me back to the earlier years
of my life, when in 1896 l began my
public life as an editor, under the
influence and example of that very
valuable and very noble man,
Charles Hammond of the Cincinanti
Gazette. 1t was while | was in the
Theological Seminary that it was
necessary that some one should
take the place on the Cincinnati Ga
zette of the editor, who had gone to
the General Assembly in Philadel-
phia, not the General Assembly
elsewhere, and l took the place with
no very great pride and with no
very great vanity, but still with
such peculiar expectations that /
remember l launched out and
bought gold watch and superla-
tive overcoat. Laughter.l For
six months all things went we'll, at
least in the office, however it may
have fated with. the readers, when
the publishers broke, the paper was
bought by a lawyer, and in the
course of four or five weeks, he in
formed me that he thought he could
run it himself. My salary stopped,
my watch went back. The coat
they would not take, and l was left
to pay for that as best l might. /
have always felt peculiar sympa-
thy for poor editors from that time
to this applause and laughter -
and if rs years go on | feel myself
called less and less to the platform
and more and more to the pen and
Editorial Convention, should not
be ashamed to wind up my life as l
began it, for think that among the
professions there is none that rank
higher than that-which is yet to
be professionalism of journalism.
Journalism, as yet, is a pursuit
rather than a profession. It has no
definite bounds; it has no common
law or customs, it has principles,
and yet they are held rather indi-
vidually than by common consent.
I is not shaped and drawn out into
and form with acknowledged foun-
dations and superstructure. That
it is to be profession, and, like all
other professions, to have it's laws
and its precepts, its maxims and its
methods, there can scarcely be any
doubt. 1t never will be a profess
sion in this same sense that law is.
It has in it so much of necessity that
is voluntary, that cannot BIO fixed,
while the law spreads itself around
about the different forms of civil
society; it has machinery fixed and
bounded for il which professional
journalism never can have.
There arc between I 900 and 5000
various journals published in the
United States and Canadas, and tor
all moral and religious purposes the
two great English speaking nations
are one. Ofdaily journals there are
about 700 in Canada and the United
States, and about 1000 weeklies and
700 monthlies. Now in so large a
number as these, surely there is ma
terial enough to begin coalescing,
taking counsel to make the outlines
and framework of the future pro-
fession of journalism. At the pres
cnt the only bonds that connect pa
pers with papers are very feeble,
operating at long distances, and for
short periods of time. The great
secular press is held together in
bonds by chiefly political influence,
but party feeling runs high for brief
periods. Nor has it been found
able to hold together even in the
same side, journals in such way
as that they should be fraternal or
brotherly, for SO soon as such jour
nails come into such relations with
each other that their profits are
affected, the ono by the other, the
power Of party is not strong enough
to hold them in affinity, and they go
into antagonism.
In religious journals sectarian,
feeling is in the main the great
bond that holds them together, but
tho same divcrsive influences OPP
crate tLcrc. Our religious journals
have been known to be quarrelsome,
and have been known to be envious
and jealous, md even among scots
there arc diversions Of opinion, and
sects don't love each other as much
as Christians should. And the jour
nails of religion for the most part
have exemplifcd the centrifugal
forces of Christianity, and the time
is yet TO come, if it ever does come.
when the ccntripetal forces will be-
gin to act, and religious Journals, il
there be any distinction, are coming
| to The common ground Of amity and
of oipilixation, and of Intellectual
M motA elevation 6pch hiRhSJ
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