Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-01-18
COUNTY NEWSPAPERS.
Their Relations to Town and Country PeO-
plea Business with Two Sides to 1t.
c. F. Clarkson, in Des Moines Register

prlQc anu county interests. Dut are
these really county papers? Have they
the appearance, spirit or contents of
real county paper? Are not too many
Of them merely town papers? In thus
coming directly home to the interests Of
some papers there is no danger of injur-
ing the worthy. But if paper is only
devoted to the interests and news Of the
town, it is only town paper. If the
editors 90 no further for the doings of
the county than the billiard saloon, the
corner grocery, or the young ladies'
warm parlor, and never out to the farm,
the workshop, the mills, the groves and
the prairie pastures, and reporting what
they see and what is being done, they
should not claim any right to their
county patronage Let them be content
with the support of the town, and those
whom they puff and with whom they
alone associate. There is no need of
pleading that there is no time The
writer has been there longer probably
than the editor of any county paper in
Iowa.
If a paper in its local columns only
puffs business in town, charity sociables,
base ball clubs, marriage bells, and this
young lady going on visit and that
young gentleman going to Chicago to
buy goods, don't claim that it is coun-
ty paper. One would imagine by read
ing some papers that their towns were
like Duluth, and no country around
them. And in other cases by the close
ness with which the editors confine
themselves to their corporate limits,
that their towns were like Deadwood.
surrounded by barbarians, with whom
they dare not associate. Spread out,
MIR. Editors. See the world around you.
Burst your narrow shells. Give to us
county papers in spirit, and then the
farmers will think you are of them and
for their interests
THE TOWN EDITOR $ SIDE.
j. S. Clarkson, in Des Moines Register, Jan s.
The editor of our agricultural depart
ment has some very plain talk to-day
about county papers being county pa
pers, and not merely town papers. His
idea, for certain length of it, is good
enough But it does not want to be car
ried too far. We leave his side of the
question with him. however, and would
speak word on the other side. Let the
farmers, who, as rule, give newspapers
the least support, do their part more
fully toward making their county paper
a real county paper by patronlzlng it
more literally. If they will do their part,
it is sure that the editor will do his part
For just as surely as effect follows
cause, a newspaper will serve all its good
patrons faithfully. 1t is too often the
case that the county newspaper is kept
up by the town and not by the county
by the merchants and business men, and
their advertising, and not by the farm
ers. The farmers scarcely do more than
to subscribe for newspaper-which is
as much as the most of them can be eX-
pccted to do, and enough. But many of
them do not even take the paper at all
while others simply take it, and use
it in many other respects free. 1t is
very sure that they advertise little and
use printers ink less. On the other
hand, the business men of the town do
both. Is it any wonder, then, that the
county newspaper pays the most atten-
tion to those who patronize it most?
\ business man in town. because he
subscrlbes for newspaper, does not eX-
pect an editor to do his advertising for
him for nothing-nor expect him to hire
a team at his own expense and drive five
or ten miles to write free description
of the goods he has for sale But many
farmers and stock breeders do expect it,
and other editors have doubtless done,
as we have often done, hire team and
send reporter to farm to write up an
advertisement for stock breeder, tell
ing of his fine stock of cattle-all for
sale-and then publish an advertisement
for him for nothing, and pay all the ex
penses beside. On all such occasions
there was, at the farmers house, of
course, good cheer and good dinner.
But hospitable treatment and dinner,
be they never so good, will hardly re-
quite publisher for an advertisement
that business man in town would have
to pay, and would expect to pay, fifty
dollars for.
We write of thing of which the ag-
ricultural editor knows both sides as
well as we do-and yet his article hard
ly betrays that he is aware that there
.tiC wv SiuOo W VIC uuSStIou. IlS has
been a newspaper publisher, and knows
that publisher always regards faithful
ly the interests of his patron-and yet,
leaning toward the too common habit Of
a kind of growing, springing up latterly
which has no nobler end than to pro-
mote hard feeling between people living
on farms and people living in towns, he
writes from the farmer side of this
question alone.
1t is hard to see or to invent any eX-
cuse for the engenderment of this feel
ing For the people of town and coun-
try average alike. Those of the country
are as good, as honest and as true peo-
pie as those of the town-and those of
the town and city are just as good peo-
pie as those OF the country and the farm
The writer of this article has lived TWEEN,
ty years in lowa-ten years on farm
among Iowa farmers, and ten years III
town or city and among city and Iowa
people. He finds no difference between
them on the average, and has always
found that one class was as honest and
true as the other. There are store peo-
pie who have short yard-sticks and
short weights, and skimp goods-and
there are farmers who sell short cords
of wood, larded butter and added eggs
Town people will sell an article at the
highest market price-and some coun-
try people, not any more Christian, will
sell corn for $5 bushel, if there is a
necessity which will make it sell at that
figure, or if they can make a necessity
Each class has its members ready to
make money by sharp practice or by ex-
tortion, but the masses of both Of them
are honest and generous and kind hand
ed alike There is no use, there can be
no use, for unfriendliness between town
and country. Their interests are iden
teal, and the prosperity Of the one is
the prosperity of the other So let us
have done with any peevish and growl
ing spirit which is making toward the
creation of feeling of enmity between
country and town. 1t is ungenerous
unneighborly and unkind, and can be in
dulged in by either class only to the in
jury of both.
The champion corn shucker this time