The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1885-10-24
THE COUNTY NEWSPAPER.

THE COUNTY NEWSPAPER.
To the many remarks made TO the
effect of THE WING losing favor among
its subscribers by its policy of silence
upon local political questions we have
but one general reply to make. In the
first place, however, we find it neces-
sary to again state that The WING has
not Withdrawn entirely from politics and
forgotten its duties towards the Repub-
lican party. Having stated this we will
proceed to give as clearly as we are
capable a definition of the aims and
uses of a county newspaper as news
paper and not an organ for the personal
motives of one man or ring of men,
either of social or political character.
The majority of the subscribers of
The WIG patronize it for the advan-
tages it offers of giving all the county
news and generous share of all that
is happening in the world at large. The
first aim and essential of county local
newspaper is now, as it has ever been,
to be as intensely local as possible,
and as much of nez0Spaper as possible.
Both terms being used in their most
literal senses. For his own uses the
farmer and merchant may desire to see
the local politics of his county discussed
in the county paper to which he lends
his patronage, but in nine cases out of
ten he blames himself most severely for
having wasted the time he did over
recountal of how sublimely worthy John
Jones is for this Office and how eter-
nally unfit Sam Brown of the opposite
party is for the position he seeks, and
comes down upon the editor in a few
days with good CD Jacksonian pro-
test against his permitting such stale
and improbable reading to enter his
columns. "Give us a story; print the
children some puzzles ; tell us about
the He'll Gate explosion anything, any
thing under the sun rather than this
old Internal political jargon." In many
instances the wrothful farmers protest
is timely and worthy to be needed, but
in frequent particular instances it is en-
tirely out of place. The duty of an
editor is to cater as far as he possibly
can to the tastes of the people COM
posing the community in which his
paper is issued and if that community
is one plunged continually in bitter po-
ltical conflicts, and setting up politics
as its aim and ideal, it would not do
for him to supply them with love-tales
and cut and-dried essays; but. when
that community is as varied and general
as that in which The WING is published
then it is becoming to take neutral
course and endeavor to satisfy the tastes
and desires of all by an equal division
of the columns to the use of matter
touching upon subjects for which those
tastes have an appetite.
If this is not wise policy, then every
enterprising journal in the county that
aspires to the creeds of modernism is
fighting its way under false colors. But
experience and study and careful OBJ
servation induce us to believe that such
policy IS the only true and loyal one
in the codes of journalism. The WHIG
aims to furnish its readers the news of
Elkton and Cecil county, the events
that have happened during the week at
various points in the country, and to
comment to the extent of its abilities
and wisdom upon all matters of local,
state, or national importance. The
WING is an advocate of Republican
principles, but not the "organ" of any
party. The statements that have been
made charging us with the conduction
of such journal we treat as mere cal
jimmy. Political calumny is unavoida-
bic by men who enter the field of party
contests. There is debasing quality
in a political life that has developed SO
rapidly of late years as to have become
almost universal. 1t has developed
from nothing more nor less than per-
sonal spite and hatred among the can
didates of the various parties, such
spites and hatreds as breed that vene-
nous worm, partsanism, and debase
politics rather than purify and exalt
them as they should ever be purified
and exalted. After careful summary
of the language we have used of late in
our editorial columns we cannot see
what foundation our commentators have
for their charges that The WHIG has
withdrawn from the political arena.
We have never made a positive or evasive
statement to that effect. The stand we
have taken in the present local political
fight is one which thousands of the best
citizens of Cecil county have heartily
endorsed, those citizens who have open
ed their eyes to the folly of Hybridism