The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-12-14
THE BEG1RA OF THE JOURNALISTS.

We observe that our contemporary, the
Chronicle, contains an announcement that it
is rumored in New York that Mr.. de Young
is going to take charge of one of the great
morning papers of that city. Certain par
ties," says Mr.. de Young in his newspaper,
"are making great efforts to get him to To-
cate in New York, and the general belief is
that they will make inducements strong
enough to tempt him." In his proposed
hegira Mr.. de Young is following the exam
pie set by Mr. Hearst of the Examiner, who
is understood 10 be in treaty for New FORK
daily, and to intend, when the transaction is
contaminated. to transfer himself, his Lares
and Penates, his steam launch and his men
agerie to the Eastern metropolis
1t goes without saying that these an
nouncements have filled the public mind
with apprehension. This community has
borne up against the loss of many eminent
citizens but il is not at all certain that it
could survive the simultaneous eclipse OF
TWO such luminaries as Mr.. de Young and
Mr.. Hearst We can recall no similar catas-
trophe, unless the departure of Coriolanus
from Rome can be regarded as parallel
The public have been so used to look to
those eminent editors not only for guidance
in political affairs but for an example of
pure life and exemplary conduct, that their
departure would leave most people without
a leader of opinion or model of good be-
haviOr. 1t would plunge society into con-
fusion, and would convert it into flock of
sheep without a shepherd.
But, in the yicissitudes of human life,
what is one mans loss is often another
mans gain, and if the light of our civliza-
ton is quenched by the departure of these
oit ba
the gamer by their advent. If two of the
great New York dailieS-as, for instance
the Sun and the World-should pass under
the control of the exiles from San Francisco.
the metropolis of the East would experience
a new sensation in journalism. The Sun
would have to call in that famous sentence
in which it denounced the publication of
paid advertisements as reading matter :;
and Mr.. McAilister's Four Hundred would
have to be pretty careful whom they omitted
in their invitation lists, if they did not want
10 be roasted in editorials. Good taste, good
grammar and common sense might cease to
be characteristics of the sheets purchased !;
but instead they would contain personal
scandals, prurient gossip and newspaper
fakes enough to satisfy the most OPEN
mouthed fiy-gobbler. How the New Workers
would like the change may perhaps be a
question. But it would be a novelty, and
novelty, the pIoyerb says, is pleasing
If the migration Of the journalists may be
assumed as a fixed fact, parting word of
advice, with suitable blessings, may not per
haps be out of place. They will find that in
New York it is not considered good form
for journalist to devote his spare time to
celebrating the social or public perform
ances OF himself and the members of his
family. That is considered shoddy and
brings both the paper and its owner into
contempt. Nor is it regarded as good judg-
ment in New York TO publish day after day
fake stories which are the invention of some
imaginative reporter. They are odd fellows
in the East, and one of their oddities is not
TO mix fact and fiction, but to take them on
separate plates. New York is large city,
and, like all large cities, it is liberal and it
forgives much. But even there man who
orenly sets at defiance the laws of society
and the rules Of morals is apt to find the at
mos phere chilly.
There was stage in the history of New
York when the lines were not drawn as
strictly as they are, and newspapers -four
ished which would have realized the ideal of
the gentlemen who, it is said, are about to
leave US. But the Eastern metropolis has
ouigrown that stage and newspaper editor
is now held to the same accounted iiity as
persons in other calings.