The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-11-11
The Progress of tie Press.


The following is an extract from the address
of A. Leonard, editor OF the Rochester (Minn. }
Post, delivered before the Editors and Pub
fishers Association of Minnesota, at St. Paul =
The newspaper is the natural result of the
highest development of the most progressive
phase of our modern civilization. 1t is the Gull
mination of centuries Of toll and invention, the
bright blossom bursting forth from the forcing
process that the business of the world is under
going in these high-pressure times.
1t is The wont of the press TO boast of its in
huence in bringing about the great and rapid
changes taking place in the political, social, and
moral world but Is it not rather a sequence
than n cause ? Is not the modern newspaper
the last result, the ultimate conclusion of the
application of steam and electricity ? The loco
motive and telegraph might exist without the
press, but the newspaper could not exist in its
highest development without them.
Franklin rendered a greater service to the pro-
fession that has recognized him as its t~utelary
genius by his experiments which led to the
handling OF electricity than by all his achieve
ments as n printer or publisher.
The paper, as it Is to-day, is the product of
the daily mail and telegraph, and it is permeated
with all the vim of electricity.
The great newspaper offices are immense fac
tories of information, sending out their wares
with Wholesale prodigality, rivalling each other
in the uoyelities of their issues, and in their
omniverouS greed for all intelligence, seiZing
upon every new discovery and making it tribu-
tary to the everyday use of telling all the world
what all the rest of the world is doing. Mail
routes, telegraph lines, pnuematic tubes. tele-
phones, all tend instinctively toward the news
paper office as their ultimate destination. The
editorial sanctnn is the point of application for
all improvements, the goal of all inventions.
No profession has before it a future SO
full of changes as ours. 1t requires but little
forecast to realize that the manufacture of new
papers is sure TO be entirely revolutionized in
the progress of discovery and invention. OF the
short five hundred years that printing has been
practised as a craft, only the last hundred has
been marked 10y any great advancement and it
is n little singular that wonderful as has been
the Improvement in the art of issuing newspapers
since the middle of last century, such improve
ment has been near y altogether in the celebrity
of press work. Presses have become almost
things of life. and their speed and perfec-
ton are reaching the bounds of incredibility
but the progress of written ideas from the
editors table to the bed of the press is the same
old slow journey by means of movable types.
If Gutenberg and Faust could visit the Office of
one of our great modern newspapers, they would
doubtless be dazed at the automatic intelligence
of the thought-evolving machinery; bat on pass
ing 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 materially different.
The use of type is too slow for these fast
times. 1t takes too long to get thought from
the brain of the editor, OF from the columns of
his exchanges, into the hands and before the
eyes of the readers. Whilst chemistry and other
sciences have been revolutionizing the kindred
art of engraving, and photography and litho-
graphy are every day giving art some new form
of household utility, the newspaper has all the
while remained a product, to too great an extent,
of simply mechanical skill and human hand
labor.
The composition is too old and too expensive.
For five hundred years he has stood at his case.
If an Edison We're given a commission nova
days to invent printing, the art would not come
forth a merely mechanical one, but a chemical,
dynamic, or electric process.
May not every editor soIe day be his own
lightning composition, and by some process of
instantaneous transfer and manifold duplication
of copies, supersede the slow typo, and high
priced press, and transform the composing-room
and press-room into laboratories and ateliers