The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-28

sought in for nation from the reporters.-New York Herald, Aprft I2
 The dear boy!
 To think that so exalted being as a judge, sitting on the bench of the state supreme court, should become so impressed by the gravity of an occa- sion as to cast aside his official dignity, and should be so anxious to gain in- formation as to be willing to seek it from "the repOrters!"
 Who writes this stuff?
 In whose eyes is a man whose title is judge any greater, better, higher, more dignified than his fellows when, at the door of friends sick chamber, he calls, with courteous intent and comradic interest? What idea of jour- nalistic duty has man who could be forced under any circumstances to write himself an inferior, to class his associates as men to whom the conver- sation of a judge lends distinction? It were bad enough to find such asser tion-and I regret to say we find little else but assertion-on what is tech- nically known as the editorial page, but to read it in the news columns, knowing it to be the emanation from a reporters brain, is dose of worm wood and gall, sufficient to stir heart of stone with indignant protest, that any man, no matter what his position, sufficiently competent, familiar with affairs, to be entrusted with any part of the great work necessary to com- plete a well-rounded newspaper could, under any pressure whatever, write such rubbish.
 Reporters, what are they?
 They are the men who hold the mir TOT up to nature. They paint the pie ture which feasts the public eye. They are worn to skin and bone in the service of others. They sharpen their wits, as they do their pencils, along the line of duty, whether duty calls them to the front of battle, 10 coal mine depths, to torrid heats or rigid blasts. Who plunged through the blizzard's drifts and told the stories in the daily press? have upon my ta- ble red covered book, across which, in startling type, read "New York III tuc OliZZoIu, IuAICy -nNC pdSCo Oi closely printed type selected from the columns of the New York Sun, em- bodying a most faithful pen por- traiture of the great city's three days snow siege.
 Who wrote the story?
 Whose dignity was cast aside, while the heavens opened, and the hail came down, and the myradic multitudinosi- ties of freezedom heaped up great mountains, apparently impossible, mighty enough at all events to stop the onward plunging of red-hot loco- motives, and to laugh to scorn the futile efforts of mammoth steam blows, to put under bondage every road the country through, to force great steamers on the rocks, to throw down wires, to check industry in every known channel, to make trade dead and throw commerce into slavery?
 Newspaper pages voluminous in ex- tent told the story day by day.
 Who wrote the story?
 A merchant prince is dying; the public want to know about him. A great statesman losses on bed of pain; the public are greatly interested. An emperor crowned, with sceptre in hand, hears his first meeting with the King of Kings, and all the world is hushed, anxious to catch his last earthly utterance, and to see with the eye of understanding the pageant as it passes. Three hundred men assemble in hall, charged with the duty of selecting presidential standard bearer. Ten thousand spectators crowd into the great spaces, gallery, amphitheatre, choridoristic, seeing and hearing, participating to certain ex- tent in the ongoings of the delibera- ative body.
 But the nation-how is it to know?
 Why, the newspapers tell it.
 Certainly, but who writes it? Who, with quick eye, detects MT. Jones from Arkansaw, as he rises in his place and speaks to the ears of a listening coun- try? Who detects an oddity, a unique ism, peculiarity? Who, calm and without the faintest trace of pertur- bation, looks upon ten thousand ex- cited men and women, shouting, screaming, yelling, defying united elements in their uproar, and notes the while, as the telegraphic click click carries the news the land around, every incident, so that the people, reading, are made as familiar with the scenes of tumult and disorder as though they were there?
 This is the reporters duty.
 Millions of people born beyond the sea live and move and conduct their industries in this land of the free, re- l