Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-01-29

can be made, the most welcome of all liter
| AZURE. And there is not in the division OF
| labor incident to the organization of society
any calling that should rank any higher or
that ought to be more honorable, than that
OF the purveyor of home news and guardian
| of the local interests of q community.
Another Improvement especially notice
| able in the local press of our day Is its grow
| ing independence of the petty politicians.
In republic, politics is part of the every
day life of the people. Those of the people.
regardless of sex or previous condition of SER
vitude, who do the voting, draw in
politics with the breath of life, and if
they think at all, think politics all their
lie long. So in a republic We must al
ways have parties and craftsmanship, and
paper that has no political character is very
likely not to have any other sort of character.
paper of non-partisan politics is weak
and habby thing, coming into the world
only half made up and with the best part of
tits manliness-left out. The people,
who can easier respect an open opponent
than pussillanimous friend, are quick to
see that assumed non partisanship in a
paper is generally q disguise for actually en-
tertsined opinions which it is feared would
be unpopular. If an editor has political
convictions let him publish them and fear
not and if he does not earn money he will
rot earn contempt.
But while paper should have politics and
should advocate them, they should be its
own politics and not those of any insignif
cant politician who assumes to dictate its
course. The paper that holds itself at the
control of either clique or a mob, or is
but the mouth-piece or the cats paw of the
lower class OF politicians, to whom it should
be superior, is like lot of old auction goods,
fit for nothing but to be sold out.
Fortunately, such papers are growing
scarcer. The papers of our own State, for
instance, to which refer because we are
best acquainted with them, are, as rule,
capable of forming and not afraid of express
ing their own opinions of politics, and,
when necessary, of politicians. The old
fashion of taking their cue from some larger
sheet or carrying out programme fixed up
for them in capitolian caucus or in sanctum
of leading daily, is honored in the breach
rather than the observance. Country papers
have ceased to be the reflex of State Jour-
mails.
And, moreover, politics, which is but one
of the many interests that newspaper has
to deal with, no longer epgrosses most of the
thoughts of the editor Or most of the space
in his paper. It finds its place among the
topics of the day, but no longer elbows all
other subjects aside. Editors are getting TO
realize and act upon the knowledge, that for
every politician who reads their paper there
are scores of sensible men, intelligent women
and bright children to whom politics is an
abomination. Let US have papers that the
men who keep out of caucuses, the
women and the children look for with
eager expectation, and it makes
bat little difference whether
the street corner statesman who spends so
much of his time in standing around and
talking that be knows not what is in the
paper till some more intelligent person tells
him, approves its course or threatens to
stop his subscription and kill it off. The
man who comes into your Office and renews
his subscription because his wife and child
rem want the paper, is far better indicator
of your success as an editor than the fellow
who slaps you on the shoulder and, in
breath redolent of tobacco and whisky, tells
you to ''give them,'' Republicans, Demo
Gratis or Greenbackers, as the case may be,
hell agin next week.'
No profession, probably, has before it
future SO full of changes as ours is destined
TO exper 'ence. 1t requires but little fore
cast to realize that the manufacture of news
papers is sure to be- entirely revolutionized
in the progress of discovery and invention
constantly going On. OF the short five hun
dred years that printing has been practiced
as craft, only the last hundred has been
marked by any great advancement,
and it Is little singular that wonder
full IS has been the improvement in the
art of Issuing newspapers since the mid
ole of the last century, such improvement
has been nearly altogether in the celebrity of
press-work Presses have become almost
things of life and their speed and perfection
are reaching the bounds of incredibility, but
the progress of written ideas from the edi-
tors table to the bed of the press is the same
old slow journey by means of movable
types. Every thought still has to be picked
up letter at time, and spelled out by the
oompositor, justified, proven and made up,
little more skillfully, to be sure, but new
ertaeless, in the same old wey that ii was
when the ingenious Germans of the. fifteenth
century first set type in imitation of the
manuscripts of the old monks. If that
first firm of publishers, Gutenberg q Faust
could visit the Office Of one of our great
modern newspapers, they would on entering
the press room doubtless be dazed at the au-
tomato intelligence of the thought evolving
machinery, and would wonder if they had
not really reached that internal region to
which the popular superstition Of their
living days had doomed them in advance by
reason of their pursuit Of their black art; but
on passing into the composing room they
would find themselves perfectly at home;
they would see the same old routine gone
through that they themselves followed with
tools modernized, to be sure, but not ma
tetialIy different. History does not inform
US, but our knowledge Of human nature
would assure US that compositors in those
days, as in these, exhibited stupidities Of
their Own, besides being charged with all
the blunders of the writers of copy which
were not detected before they got into print,
and that the making up of a form was
process encumbered with unexpected delays
and petty annoy ances and fraught with pro-
family, either mental or outspoken, and with
uncertain and unpredictable waste of time.
The use of type is too slow for these fast
times. 1t takes too long to get thought from
the brain of the editor, or from the columns
of his exchanges, into the hands and before
the eyes of the readers. Type setting is an
art that in its slowness is as much out of
consongnce with the speedy activity of our