The south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1879-1883, 1883-06-12
About Editors.

Charles Dudley Warner, in de-
lightful book, entitled "The Ameri-
can Newspaper" says: at is a sub
ject in which everybody is interested,
and about which it is not polite to
say that anybody is not well in
formed for although there are scat
tered through the land many persons,
am sorry to say, unable to pay for a
newspaper, l have never heard of
anybody unable TO edit one.
1t is a popular ambition with a
great many cultivated persons to
have free swing in the columns of a
newspaper. Occasionally an ire
pressible genius of this kind sur
mounts all obstacles, seats himself
triumphantly in the cane-bottomed
chair of the holy of holies, sticks a
pen behind his ear, reads few arti-
cles, politically, literary, scientific
and local, and imagines himself en-
tirely competent TO deal with all sub
jects at once, and all the time. 1t
doesn't take him more than three
months, if he is really a sensible man,
to find out what an ass he has made
of himself.
An editors life is dogs life that
is, if, Ixion-like, he is bound to the
wheel, and forced, nolens volens, to
put the machinery of his brain in
motion, and keep it going day and
night, year in and year out. There
is no slavery like that of newspa-
per man whose subsistence is in his
daily labor, and whose bread stops
when his brain wears out. Whatev-
er inclination he may have toward
green pastures, there is no chance
for him to jump the fence. His mill
must grind it must grind every day
and every hour, and he must fur
nish the grist. When he stops the
mill stops, and stoppage of the mill
means starvation. Men who are not
initiated in the mysteries of the edi-
itor's degree of the order of the black
art, may think it would be fun and {
mere bagatelle to whip off a newspa
per every morning, or two or tire,
times week, but they only want
little experience to make them un
derstand the difference between wri
ting what you will and what yol
must.
The mistakes that most persons Ia
Dor under when they enter editorii
life is that they will have free ager
cy in developing their own ideas fc
the benefit of the public; that the
may be original, independent and al
bitrary, and float along as teacher
with nothing to modest or make the
afraid so long as Ethey refrain fro
personalities. When a man is rit
enough to print as many papers
he chooses, and put everybody on Il
free list, this will work very wei
but where there is q work of col
pensation other than that of the no
or of being an editor, it won't wol
by Jug full. An editor is not
man of ideas that is not Of his oN
ideas. lie is the little, long shade
of somebody else-the mere mediu
for an opinion of some person WI
paws. lie may appear to own j
paper, but his paper owns him. Il
subscribers own him, his advert
ers own him, his friends own hi
his party owns him and he is t
yericst slave on earth. An employ
editor is in worse condition tn
the editor who thinks he owns t
paper, for the hircling is owned
the slave whois owned by the pap
As rule it will be found that
editor who parades his independer
most is most servile to master W
stands In the dark.
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