The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1890-07-04

Almost every man at sometime in
his life is smitten with o newspaper
mania, / fancy, saws Talmage. He Las
some idea, moral or political or relig
ious, and he induces some friend to nd
vance the cash to start paper, and he
gets out prospectus which threatens
to do great things. After week or
two some plain, matter-of fact stock
holder fiuds out that there has been no
special revolution 10 the universe aud
that the sun and moon do not stand
still, and that men are just as big liars
as they were before, and that boodlers
are Just as thick. Pretty soon big
bill for white paper comes in and alb
serbs all the spare cash in the business
office and the printers refuse to work
unless the Strings" are cashed up; the
printer bows TO the managing editor
and the managing editor bows TO the
editor-in-chief and he bows to the
stockholder. The stockholder bows
to the general public, and the sub
scriber in the rural districts wonders
why his paper does not come any
more.
Ny advice to a man who has any
thing to say in newspaper is to say
1t through some paper that is alrea iy
an established institution.
An idea is prevalent that man who
can do nothing else can edit news
paper. A man who cannot row dug
ont across the Mississippi river has no
business trying to engineer the Great
Eastern from New York to Liverpool.
1t requires, to edit a newspaper sue
cessfully, the brains of a philosopher,
the skill, the vigilance and the bold
ness of great general; man ought
to be statesman, an essayist, geo
grapher, a statistician and an encyclo-
pedia; aud if more men had found this
out earlier in their career there would
have been many fewer cases of bank
ruptcy within the last fifty years. Ny
advice to the young man who feels
called on TO start newspaper is that
he consider that the first sign of soft
ening of the brain, that he place all his
money in his wife's hands aud make a
rush for some lunatic asylum and sur
render himself before he does any
thing desperate.
| l believe great improvement VII
be made in th9 newspapers when they
drop the impersonal style. The best
pens and the best minds are engaged
to-day in writing for newspapers and
their writings often appear in the edi
torial columns, yet most of them die
unknown, and live, many of them. OF
iuccmpetent salaries. After wbil'
their hand forgets its cunning aud
without resources they die The worlC
never knew them. If this impersonal
ity were dropped in the more impor
tant of newspaper writings, it woul'
be greater justice to those who ell
, gage in newspaper work 1t used t
add weight to an article in the New
I York Tribune to see the initials 'H
G. at the end of it. When men sig
their names to what they write, lite
ary men will come to larger appreclf
7 ton. No honorable man would writ
anything that he would be ashamed t
put his name to, and writers can b
held responsible for what they writ
The impersonal editorial "we' will n.
stand between a man who has bee
+, assailed and the writer who is respo
Q sible for the article.
u l could preach whole sermon upc
's the everlasting blessings of gOc
l. newspaper. A good newspaper ia Il
's greatest temporal blessing that G.,
y has given to the people of this countr
N In the first place all the people res
the newspapers, and then the new
n papers furnish the greater portion
re the reading of the people. Th'
d don't read books. The old peop
IN look for the deaths, the young peop
K; look for the marriages, and those W
IN are unemployed read the want adv'
Is tisemeuts. Great libraries make f
g intelligent men and women, but t
n newspapers lift the nation into su
light My idea of good newspaF
re is mirror of life itself. Some peol
to complain because the evil of the wo
rs is reported as we'll as the good. I
er evil must be reported as we'll as
IL good, or how will we know what
ly guard ourselves against or what to
Sc form, There is chance for discril
nation as 10 how much space shall
he given to such things as prize fgf
rn but the newspaper that merely 7
an sents the fair and beautiful and brig
a sunny side of life is misrepreseu
tv ton. That family is best qualified
en- the duties of life who have told
IN. them not only what good there is
in the world but the evil, and is told
of select the good and reject the evil.