Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1888-01-21
THE PRESS.


Rev. Mr.. Mahafie's sermon last Sunday
evening on the subject of the Press. Mr..
Mahaffie is good speaker and pains
taking minister. Perhaps nothing has
greater force in inducing people to attend
church than the belief that the minister
has rustled to find something beyond the
usual routine to speak upon. While we
are thus determined to be understood as
being thoroughly friendly to Mr.. Mahaffie,
we shall offer in the course of this article
some criticisms of his sermon last Sum
day evening. He told of the more than
twenty thousand papers which are publish
ed in the United States, and stated that of
these about ninety-fve per cent. are sec
ular and the other five per cent. religious
He asserted that the press is apower, and
that on account of the predominancy of
the secular press, the great balance of the
power is with it. The speaker said
some papers are unfit to be read, and alb
jured his hearers not to read that class.
He claimed that the people themselves
have in their own hands, to great extent,
the moulding of the character of the press.
Mr.. Mahaffie declared that people should
assist editors by contributions and sug-
gestions in issuing moral publications,
and inserting nothing which can not be
read with safety by everybody. The ora
tor said there is a class of metropolitan
journals which can afford to be outspoken.
and that they, on account of their large
circulation, WELD a power for good which
deties opposition. In fact, his sermon
was full of good things, and the chief
trouble was that he did not have sufi-
cient time to particularize so as to show
the subject for what it really was worth.
Now, if there is any subject which we
have studied, it is that connected with the
publication of newspaper. A man of
industry, ability and nerve can run a
country newspaper, and keep it running,
without keeping up study as to how the
popular breeze is blowing. This is en-
inently true in Kansas. The main quail
fications to enable country paper to live
in this state are to find place where the
newspaper field is not already filed, be
sure 4sa are right, and then 60 ahead.
as q rule, the governing motives Of the
country press are pure Beyond this, it
will scarcely avail to wage against it adj
verse criticisms. There are, it is true.
some exceptions, where brutes. and not
men, are pretending to run newspapers.
Against this class, we will stand by the
ministers in his war of determination. It
is fact, moreover, that in Kansas the
people themselves generally agree to let
such excrescences die early!
Again: The World does not accept as
correct the proposition that the influence
of the country press is confined to the
respective communities in which the pa
pers are published. Burning thoughts,
even in this age, are not so plentiful as to
lose their force before being taken up and
reproduced by papers which have gen.
eral circulation. The power of the coun-
try press is, for this reason, no more cir
cumscribed than is that of the lawyer in
country town, who is bright enough to
practice before the supreme court of his
state and the United States courts with
frequency. Perhaps you want this proved.
We might begin near home, but we
will not We will cite Albert Griffin. who,
as editor of the Manhattan Nationalist.
impressed his views upon the people of
the country SO effectually as to be chosen
to head the national anti-saloon element,
which purposes to work within the lines
Of the Republican party. The Nationalist,
bear in mind, is country paper; but Mr..
Griffin is not a scrub editor. This is the
point. Take Sol Miller, of the Troy Chief:
His sentiments, as promulgated in his
country journal, become as we'll known
throughout the state as those. of the edi-
tors of any of our Kansas state or Kan
sas City dailies. We might go on and
talk of Geo. w. Martin, Bent Murdoch
and host of other country editors in
Kansas, showing their power in state at
fairs.
OF course, it is to be. admitted that the
country press owes its support for exist
ence to the fact that, as local agencies
for the dissemination of news, they fill
place in mans allotment which, as rule,
can not be even touched upon by the
metropolitan press. That this is their
main field. we cheerfully concede, but
many of them exercise positive powers
beyond these circumscribed territories.
THERE is move on foot to bond