The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1886-04-22

mense financial and intellectual exhaus-
lions of the newspaper press. They grum-
bic because they have to pay five cents a
copy and wish they had only to pay three,
Or, paying three, they wish they had only
to pay one. While there are few excep-
tions-and some few do make large for
tunes-the vast majority of newspaper
people in this day have struggle for live
lihood, and if, in their hardship and exas-
peratIon they sometimes write things they
ought not to write, let these facts be an
alienation. O men of the press. it will be
a great help to you if, when you come
home late at night, tagged out and ner-
yous with your work, you would just lsneel
down and commend your case to God, who
has watched all the fatigue of that day,
and who has promised to be your God and
the God of your children forever.
Another great trial of the newspaper
profession is the diseased appetite for I'M
healthy intelligence. You blame the
newspaper press for giving such promi-
nence to murders and scandals. Do you
suppose that so many papers would give
prominence to these things if the people
did not demand them? l go into the
meat market of asforeign city, and I find
that tie butchers hang I'm the most
conspicuous hooks meat that is tainted,
while the meatsthat is fresh and savory is
put away without any especial care. l
come to thesconclusion that the people of
that city love tainted meat. You know
very well that if the great mass of people
in this country get hold of a newspaper,
and there is in it no runaway matches, no
broken-up families, no defamation of men
in high position, they pronounce the paper
insipid. They say 1T is shockingly dull
tonight l believe it is one of the trials
of the newspaper press, that the people of
this country demand moral slush instead
of healthy, intellectual food. Now, you
are respectable man, an intelligent man,
and paper comes into your hand You
open it, and there are three columns of
splendidly written editorial, recommend
ing some moral sentiment, or evolving
some scientific theory. In the next col
umn there is a miserable, contemplate
divorce case. Which do you read first
You dip into the editorial long enough to
say :"Well, that's very ably written, y and
you read the divorce case from the ''long
primer" type at the top to the ''nonpariel''
type at the bottom, and then you ask your
wife if she has read it 0, it is only a
case of supply and demand! Newspaper
men are not fools. They know what you
want and they give it to you. 1 believe
that if the Church and the world bought
nothing but pure, honest, shealthful news
papers, nothing but pure honest and
healthful newspapers would be published.
If you should gather all the editors and
the reporters of this country in one great
convention, and then ask of them what
kind of a paper they would prefer to pub
lish, believe they would Unanimously
say 1--WE would prefer to publish an ele-
waiting paper y So long as there is an
iniquitous demand there will be an in
iqultous supply. make no apology for
debauched newspaper, but I am saying
these things in order to divide the respon-
sibility between those who print and those
who read.
Another temptation Of the newspaper
profession is the great alIurement that
surrounds them. Every occupation and
profession has temptations peculiar to it.
self, and the newspaper profession is not
an exception. The great draught, as you
know, is on the nervous forces, and the
brain is ransacked. The laundering polit-
ical speech must read well for the sake of
the party, and so the reporter OF the edi-
tor has to make it read well, although
every sentence was a catastrophe to the
English language. The reporter must
hear all that an inaud1ble speaker, who
thinks it vulgar to speak out says, and it
must be right the next morning OF the
next night in the papers. though the night
before the whole audience sat with it's
hand behind its ear in vain trying to catch
it. This man must so Trough killing
night work. He must gu the heated as
semblages and into unventilated aud ience
rooms that are enough to take the life out
of him. He must visit court rooms which
are almost disgusting with rum and
tobacco. He must expose himself at the
fire. He must write in fpted alley ways.
Added to all that he must have hasty
mastication and irregular habits. To bear
up under this tremendous nervous strain,
they are tempted to artificial stimulus,
and how many thousands have gone down
under that pressure God only knows
They must have something to coun-
teract the wet, they must have some
thing to keep out the chill, and after a
scant nights sleep they must have some
thing to revive them fora mornings work.
This is what made Horace Greedy such a
stout temperance man. He told me that
he had seen so many of his comrades go
down under that temptation. Oh my
brother of the newspaper profession, what
you cannot do without artificial stimulus
COG does not want you to do. There is
no half war ground for our literary people
between teetetalism and dissipation. Your
profe ssional success, your domestic peace.
your eternal salvation will depend upon
your theories in regard to artificial slim
illus. l have had so many friends go
down under the temptation, their bril-
liancy quenched, their homes blasted that
l cry out this morning, in the words of
another: "Look not upon the wine when
it is red when it moveth itself Alright in the
cup for at the last it biteth like a serpent
and stingeth like an ADDER
Another trial of this profession is the
fact that no one seems to care for their
souls. They feel bitterly about it though
they laugh. People sometimes laugh the
loudest when they feel the worst. They
are expected to gather up religions pro-
ceedings and to discuss religious dcclires
in The editorial columns, but who expects
them to be saved by the serm ons they
photograph or by the doctrines they is
cuss in the editorial columns? The world
looks upon them as professional. Who
breaches to reporters and editors Some
of them came from religious homes, and
when they left the parental roof, whoever