Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-10-16

! not so much as keep simple card in the
advertising columns of the local press.
They assume an independence of the news
paper that is false, dangerous and ungen-
erous. The local newspaper, by the very
fact Of its existence, helps make the bust
ness of every business man. 1t gives the
chief Importance to the locality, and with
! out it the town would be heard of a.
known only by great misfortunes and
phenomenal accidents. The business house
that refuses fatty to give any support to
its local press, though proitting by the
publicity the place gains through it,
fattens at the expense of others. There is
no gainsaying this truth. Advertising
may not yield immediate returns in all
! cases; it may be well nigh impossible
occasionally to trace direct and clearly
! defined business as specifically due to
given advertisement but the man is liv-
ing to small purpose who does not know
that the general beneficial result is as GER
tain as the rising of the sun. However,
in ninety cases out of hundred, the rela-
ton between advertisement and trade-gain
is clear, direct and immediate. But, how
ever this may be, as any given locality is
dependent for its prominence in so large
degree upon the newspaper as the me-
hat,r ba ~ 10 -
logically follows that there is duty to con-
tribute, by advertising, to the support of
that medium The rich houses that "do
not advertise" as we are told by our con-
temporary they reply, may believe that
they are not directly injured by their
short-sightedness but the community is,
and they must share it, and the time
comes, as surely as does death, when this
is made apparent to all.
1t is bad sign for the business of the
place when one takes up the local press in
in any State and searches in vain in its is
sues for the announcement or card direc-
ton of leading houses. Interpreted, the
omission means that the business man who
practices this disuse declares that the press
is not necessary to his community judg-
ment which, if experimentally put into
practice, would leave the place high on
the banks of a dry rot.
Wherever there are houses amenable to
these remarks, they ought to take the
thought into the counting room and pom
der on it. OF course the newspaper man
everywhere does his best in soliciting adj
vertising support, and expects to meet with
some rebufs, and will. But away above
and beyond this special urgency is the
eternal truth that his claim to recogni-
ton is a sound one, on the consideration
that the newspaper, if it be fair, honest
and high minded, does inestimable service
for its community, for which it cannot be
recompensed. We can fancy towns and
cities to-day prosperous, deprived for
considerable period of newspapers, and it
calls for no vigorous exercise OF the i'm
agination to picture the business condition
of such places. Let our contemporary
hammer away at the truth that every man
owes something to the community in
which he lives, and to every agency that
makes it desirable for him that this is
continuing obligation, reciprocal in nature,
and upon which community prosperity is
dependent, and it will find that the people
are responsive to these truths.