The Clifton clarion., 1889-07-10
Value of the Local Paper.

in most communities do not seem ad- equately to appreciate the value of the local newspaper as an agency of advertising the business interests. and augmcnting the importance of the city or town in which it is published: There are to be found in every towb very considerable portion of busii ness men who are ready to give their time and labor to the organization and maintenance of boards of trade, or any other movement for the at traction of outside enterprise and cap- ital, and whom it is not difficult to in duce to subscribe money for the es- tablishment of promising enterprises, but nevertheless contribute little or nothing to a means of greater i'm portance and efficiency in the build- ing up of their town-the support and Improvement of it's newspapers.
 There is no question but that the newspaper of any town or city may be made the most effective possible agency in its development and pros perity. The efforts and influence of either individuals or organizations are at best but spasmodic and transient, but the newspaper works on steadily and necessarily. The individual agitator of the board of trade reaches only comparatively limited field of opportunity-only those to whom the particular effort may be directed: but the newspaper reaches out in every direction. and carries it's influence to hosts of un- known and unsuspectcd watchers of opportunities. Among shrcw1 intell- igent inen of affairs, the character of every community is measured more by tie standard of its newspaper than perhaps by any other single indica- ton. With q little observation and experience remarkably just estimate o1 the characteristics of town may be reached by an inspection of it's newspapers. If the community is q live, pushing, liberal one, the columns of its local newspapers will be fonnd crowded with the advertise- ments of its manufacturers, it's merchants and professional men. If these announcements are absent. the investigator will naturally set the town down as containing a slow, un- ambitious, unprogressive community And without such support in a liberal measure no newspaper can do justice either to it's town or to the ambition of its publisher.
 ltis quite safe 10 assert that a news paper is rarely found inadequately representing the consequence and enterprise of its community. The cases are exceptional indeed in which q community deserves better news papers than it possesses, or iii which local newspapers do not fatteringly reflect the actual character of the com munity. But to do this-thus to in dulge a laudable spirit of local pride-they are very commonly com pelled to make pecuniary contribu- tious to tie public good, far exceeding in volume what might reasonably be expected by them at the hands of scores of business men, who seem to feel that they have done all that is in- cumbent upon them, as public spirit ed members of the community, if they give the paper the support of mere subscription.
 It is popular but probably fal-
 acious impression that newspapers are just what their publishers and editors make them. They are not; they are to a very great extent what the business community where they are published makes them. They represent the character and merits of the community far more exactly than they do the energy and enterprise of their publishers or the ability and ambition of their editors. It is in the power of the business men ofany com munity to push their local newspapers forward to standard impossible of attainment by any effort of the publishers without their cooperation, and in no other direction can an equal measure of effort and experience be applied with any like equal effect in advancing the interests, not only of the community at large, but of the individual business man himself.-ln- dustrial Journal.
 "Your's is an agricultural country, isn't it?" asked man on the limited