Omaha daily bee., 1883-02-05
POLITICAL AND PERSONAL
JOURNALISM.

loafer feels competent to edit a news.
paper. Briefless lawyers, half starved
doctors, broken lnded preachers,
and shiftless printers, often labor I'M
der the delusion that they can fill q
long felt want as editors In some vii
lsge or city. Nine out of ten news
paper ventures have always proved a
failure. Success In journals a, espe-
cially In daily newspapers, Is excep-
tional. 1t Is achieved either by men
who have enjoyed long and careful
ne vi faper training, or by q supreme In.
dividuality impelled by a sublime
moral courage that fearlessly grapples
with every living Issue, and possesses
the rare and happy faculty of striking
the popular chord by saying the right
thing at the right time In compact
plain and vigorous Anglo Saxon. 1t
Is this class of journalists that founded
the great newspapers Of America,
and made them famous and In
Auential. And the measure Of their
influence has always been In ratio to
their intense individuality. In the
very nature of things the
agitator whose pen has torn to shreds
the fllmsy cloak Of political adverse
rIes and driven dishonest public men
into political e~xile-cannot achieve
these results without personal attacks.
Every political revolution and every
great reform In the domain of politics
has been fought for and won by per-
sonal journalism. 1t was Tom PAine's
personal journalism that fred the
hearts Of the revolutionary heroes who
gave this country Its independence.
It was Horace Greeley's superb per-
sonslity that made his Tribune a pow
or In the land and gave abolition Its
solid footing by educating the masses.
Leave Horace Greeley out of the 7'ri.
bune before the war and what would
have become Of the paper or the anti
slavery issue7 What gives the New
York Sun its tremendous power In
New York 1t is the personality CT
Chas. A. Dana and his earle So handling
Of men and measures. What created
the New York Herald as a world.
wide medium Of intelligence 2
The positive and p~ugnaclous utter
ances of the elder Bennett, who not
only wrote but fought, and was the
Victim Of more personal assaults than
any other editor In America. In the
south west, GeorgeD Prentiss, the most
~caustic Photographer that aver edited a
paper, founded Prentiss' Louisville
Journal, which became famous where
ever the English language was read,
and which after his death became the
chief factor Of the present Courier
Journal -Forney's Press, Of Philadel
phis, Murat Halsted's Cincinnati
Commercial, Storey's Chicago Times,
and ON the Pacific coast DeYoung
S%anfranoisoo Chronicle, have escl
doomed like pyramids. on the American
newspaper desert strewn with wreck
and skeletons. The same is true o
journalism in Europe. The PariI
Monitew, founded by Emil Girardin
owes Its eminence to personal journal
ism, La RepubLique Francaise, editet
~ Leon Gambetta, was pre-. eminentl!
personal, and Roohefort's Marseil
laise shook Napoleon's empire to 1t
foundation and prepared the way t.
the present republic. In Germany
Austria and England the founders o
great newspapers, and the journal
that lead public opinion owe thei
power to personal Jour nalism, whicl
Ia exercised as far as 1t can be unde
the restriction imposed by law. Thi
Is no defense of license and the abus
of press privileges, but merely aug
gested by the p1ny and silly utteranc
of al obscure essayist who delivere,
himself of Oh ''oration" on persons
and political journalism before the re
cent meeting, of what Is known as tb
Nebraska Press association. This ai
ISOLATION from being q society for tn
elevation of Nebraska Journalism
aud the business interests of N,
braska publishers has degsn el
ated into a mere free lunc
and free ride concern. Comprisln
less than one.third of the editors an
publishers of Nebraska, its member
have never taken the first step toward
improving their own condition or tina
of society, but they are content wit
= an annual essay by some splenetic az
who has not mastered the A. B. O. {
journalism, a poem by some man VIII
doesn't know poetic meter from a "a
meter and then a free ride to Co
orado, Texas, ArksnEas or Magyar
with free lunches thrown IL
The last essay is a compound of ignol
. ance, malice and faIsehood, which n
respectable journalist could endors
% or countenance. II affects deep syn
psthy for a late politician whom
represents as being bounded to h