Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-09-01
THE APPEAL,

While our business people are making
known their wants and giving 30 many evil
dences of prosperity, it will not be out of
| place to say that the APPEAL has shared in
the general prosperity as much, perhaps, as
any business in Memphis. Thirteen years
ago this paper was purchased for $4,000, but
recently parties have offered TO buy an inter-
est at the rate of 100000. 1t would, how
ever, take twice that amount 10 purchase the
paper, as It's profits will show that that
amount of money could not be as pro6tably
invested in any other business. The AP-
Deal has been in existence nearly
forty-two year,, and it has never been
SO prosr Ferrous as now, including even
the flush times before and that followed
the war. The circulation has never
been 80 large now, and its advertising
patronage from day to day speaks for itself.
There will be no change in the management
Of the APPEAL, except in that constant pro-
gress which marks the leading journals of
the day. Our columns from day to day, and
especially this morning shows the phase which
the APPEAL bears to the modern industries
of life, TO business, and commerce, and trade.
The magnificent proportions in which the
-rrT,1srs-taris-r rzarur airy
suggests the consideration of this question.
Page upon page, it will be seen, are given
over to trade, to manufactures, 10 the mer-
chant, and to all the business avocations of
life. They tell their own story in their own
way. To present the business story OF the
past year, and to make room for the great
advertising jubilee, and at the same time |
give the current news of the day, is a severe |
demand upon the resources of even the best |
equipped newspaper Office. But the APPEAL |
has made use Of every appliance that skill, |
experience and energy could devise, and it
appears the herald of a busy world. A study |
of our columns this morning is full of in-
struction. First of all, they show what an
important function the great newspaper
discharges in our social economy. The
newspaper is now the grand full
crum and lever that moves the world.
When the historian of the closing years
of the century in which we live shall
sit down TO write the story it embraces
social, economical and political-there Is
enc phase Of it which will demand more
than passing chapter. In the dawniug of J
the opening years of the nineteenth century,
a small cloud "no bigger than a mans
hand" appeared above the political horizon,
aud from that day until this it has been ex-
pandipg, until it has covered the whole
heavens. The new political and social factor
was the modern newspaper. In the beginning
il was weak, timid, vacillatirg. Patronage
its utterances. Politicians, states
men, ministers, kings, parties held it in sub
ection and made it mere instrument of
heir schemes, ambitions, rivalries. This
s the early history of the newspaper press
n every country where the press is free and
10 day. Even in the United
States, fifty years ago, the newspapers
we're the slaves OF party, and at the same
period they were the same in En-
gland. The English cabinet edited the
Times. Napoleon conducted the Moni.eiT.
The elder Pitt and the first Bonapare were,
when the occasion demanded, editorial
writer's. Within the last half century the
press has in great measure burst these fet-
ers. 1t has become free. As the friends of
popular liberty grew wider the power and
influence of the press enlarged into broader
ireles. 1t was the pebble thrown into the
vide, deep sea of modern politics, and from
hat early departure it has grown and ad-
-snced until il has grasped all The problems
Nth which the world finds itself confronted
There is no department of human effort and
ndeavor in which the modern newspaper
las not made itself a potent factor. Not
atis6ed with being The mere chron-
cler of events, it shapes and molds 7
vents. In the mere matter of government
plays more important part than the So !
allied statesmen, whose deeds it recounts and
, whom it gives the victory and fame
cience is indebted to it for some OF the
reatest of its achievements. 1t has entered n
he field even against governments and ma 4
ons in the endeavor TO wrest its secrets from =
ature, and it has succeeded where govern {
tents have failed. 1t has brushed aside the n
lbbish of centuries, exposed humbuggery
i every form, and scattered the clouds of
.uorauce and superstition. No mind can o
the future usefulness OF The Z
ress. The APPEAL will ever be a jealous I
borer in the profession which directs hu- Il
an thought and human action. The rela- p
We circulation of nearly all the leading q
.wspapers in the United States are known, II
I'd to show that the people residing within II
e radius of country contributary to Mem n
lis are reading people we have only 10 a
fer TO the fact that the Memphis newspa- y
RS have larger circulation in proportioa al
population than most of the cities in the d.
nited States. And the same comparison y
ii hold in regard to advertising, which *
ows that our business men are energetic Ii
a autarnrisinu Al