Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-07-15
THE HOME PAPER.

If the people of the several counties of
the State are alive to their true interests
they will amply support their home
papers Journals of cities may have gen.
orally more attractions, but they never
can possess the value to local constit-
uency of the paper published within the
Lines Of such community In saying this,
We have fully in mind that we may be
speaking against our own interests; but if
by that utterance We should work the re-
striction of our NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. patron
age, we still should say to the people of
rural localities that their duty to their
local papers should not he circumscribed
by the fact that foreign papers bid in the
same field. Some one has said that if he
could have half an hour alone with any
single issue of Il town paper, he could
write from its columns of matter and adj
yertisements correct estimate of the
social, business and progressive character
of the people and gauge the measure of
their general intellectual requirements
and schemes. And so he could. We can
almost invariably read starved, timid,
unprogressive people in the community
paper their poverty of courage involves.
So, then, the country newspaper is an in
dex to the state of country society. But it
is good deal more; 1t is the chief means
Of intercourse between that community
and the reading world. The town paper
brings the town and county to attention
they would otherwise never receive, and
thus the invitation people extend to the
outside world is best extended through the
local newspaper. The intelligent reader
knows that the editor and publisher of the
local paper move in the atmosphere of the
people; that they reflect accurately the
thought Of the people; that they never
dare-no matter how much inclined-to
write above the heads Of the people of
their locality. The intellectual reader
knows that, even down to the smallest adj
Sertisement, the country paper is apt to be
The most accurate of Journals, because it is
Hnder the immediate criticism and censor
ship, as it WERE of those upon whose iudg-
ment Of its value it must depend for its
success. For these reasons alone, if for no
other, the country journal is reliable one,
and becomes the very best medium for
addressing the outside world Its one
drawback is its limited circulation. But
at happens that city journals are alive to
the Importance to themselves of publishing
the spirited expressions and the newsy
records Of the country press, and so it is
that most Of that that is good in the coun-
try journal has reading clientage vastly
greater than the measure of its own circu-
cation. The country press being so neces-
sary to the country community; being the
chief vehicle of debate in it the best me-
dunn for interchange of views between its
people; the one paper of all others to push
to public attention the possibilities and
resources Of the section; it follows that
local communities owe the local press lib
eral support. 1t ought not to much matter
TO the large-minded man whether the ed
itor reflects views always in consonance
with his own, or opposed TO them. He
ought to and does look beyond that; he
ought to and does see in the paper a rep
resentative of his town or vicinage: he
ought to and does see in it the effort of
men usually devoted and conscientious to
the discharge of duty-effort the reward of
which is wholly dependent upon local 10y
atty The reader may not get the worlds
news in his county paper; he may not be
tickled with columns of wit, or moved by
essays of philosophical cast; he may find
snore space given to trivial than important
subjects he may find John Jones, Esq,
,Iauded into an Importance, wholly out of
keeping with the real Importance of plain
John Jones; he may find his county paper
the very reverse of far away IN its specula-
tions, and altogether practical, homely and
home-deyoted but for all these things he
will, if wise, find in his local paper daily
chronicle as important to a small world as
/, the Thunderer to England, and just as
close. nay, a stronger, more absolutely nee
essarv link between the little world aud