The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1886-12-24
AN EDITOR - CHRISTMAS.

1 ISL BIT. W OftDlngtOn at all III real lille,
but very famous man whose tongue and
pen carry great weight.
My first journal was a country weekly in
| Doonville. A ''flourishing and fearless"
journal, was the way my kindly disposed
contemporaries spoke of it in their able
pages. It's name was The Trumpet, and
speak only the painest truth when l say
that it gave forth no uncertain sound.
was very young man and very ambitious.
| thought knew exactly what forceful
weekly newspaper should be, and hadn't
the least doubt Of my capacity to construct
and manipulate such an engine of reform
and advancement. That is the way of the
very young, God bless them. Before
they have had hand to hand encounter
with life they feel 50 strong and confident
they believe they can do anything, and this
very belief, mark you, is what makes the
phenomenal successes we so often admire
and wonder at. The Spaniards have a
proverb, ''IIe who expects good luck will
| get it, and it is as true sentence as ever
was penned. Believe you can do anything
and you can, any one can do it. Success,
like the art Of swimming, is largely a mat
ter Of confidence.
worked very hard on The Trumpet.
was business man, edtor and staff. | had
very decided ideas in regard to lettering
the world, and started out with the praise
| WORTHY infeutiuu ,f extiuottiSbipu several
giant wrongs under which plainly saa
| that society suffered We all have the
reformatory spirit much stronger in us in
| youth than later on, for the reason, per-
haps, that we haven fully measured the
strength OF our antagonist, the existing
system OF things | was sincerely anxious
to thoroughly represent all worthy local
interests. To that end | secured Boon
willie night and day, and wrote up all
sorts of things that never before hal been
| described by pen, or immortaliztd i'll type.
| wanted to wake up my fellow townsmen
and women to the interests that lay close
around them, and OF all things | wanted
them to properly appreciate The Trumpet
| intended to issue magnificent Christ
mas number of my beloved journal, twice
it's ordinary size and brim full OF the most
almring holiday matter could create and
rake up. To perfect that number almost
worked myself into a decline. Looking
back upon it new, from the standpoint of
what beg to be permitted to call mature
10
for the industry. zeal and confidence |
nursed into respectable development in
those old, hard working, moneyless days
on The Trumpet.
Among other attractive features Tor my
Christmas paper determined to write up
the very poor of Doonyille. could thus be
the means of comforting two benelactions-
giving the rich a chance to taste of tie
blessing of giving-Gor it is more blessed
to give than to receive and also open the
way for the poor to be helped. And on
CHI istmas, you know, all heal is are said to
be tenderer and more generous, and many
are glad of an opportunity to do something
for the needy.
Doonyille was a small place, and SO very
prosperous that | scarcely knew where to
go to hunt people so poor that dare in
trude upon them and tell their wants in my
valuable and widely circulated paper.
Many of its citizens were very rich, and
none whom personally knew had fallen
below decent and tolerable proyerty. But
I A. ~;
bank. were some broken down houses
about whose doors had sometimes seen
very ragged and very dirty children play
ing. determined to go thither and in
vestigate.
| had this thought i'll my mind as | was
going to Office one morning just two days
before Christmas. determined to go cut
that afternoon and begin the search. |
hadn't gone far when | met Calamity
Parker. That was what called him when
my speech was without bride, for | held
him in great contempt.
He was tall, thin, broken down crea-
ture who posed as gentleman and moved
about with solemn, unhealthiul gait and
distributed religious tracts. He always
seemed to me frightiui cxcrescence ON
society, although he had the discretion to
say but little. 1t fretted my progressive
spirit tn see him crawling around thrusting
his weak literature under more intelligent
and buiser peoples eyes. 'The day
and generation are beyond tracts said
to myself, "and here is this threadbare
fraud keeping up this relic of fogyism."
despsed him so heartily | could hardly
speak a decent good morning as he passed
me. | think he felt that ] disliked him;
but he had cultivated the unctuous af1ecta-
ton of godliness and an appearance of
patience and sweetness under Sights and
taunts, and invariably returned = smile for
frown. That very habit made him de
testable to me.
began to think about him rs | went
along. He had only been in Doonviie
couple of years, and had never heard of
his doing anything but distribute tracts
and preach on the street corners down by
the mills. | concluded that it was time he
was abolished. Accordingly my first work
on reaching the Office was to write half
column editorial article on religious
frauds" in which the practice of tract dis
t,;h,,+;nr racaivad merifpd pastioation