St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-07-19
MR. HILLS, PAPER.

A noteworthy feature of the editors
convention was Mr.. HILLS paper on
the decay of the editorial as a depart
ment of the modern newspaper. He is
reported TO have predicted time not
far distant when the daily journal
would give all its space to what is
known as news, and when the man who
now writes the column or two OF COM
ment, TO which the editorial page has
dwindled. would find his occupation
altogether gone. He regretted that
DANAs and WATTERSoNs could in this
day so seldom be found in the profess
siOn'S ranks, and criticised the average
contemporary editorial as weak and
f1ippant in tone, and as offering nothing
calculated to influence mems thought
OF shape their conduct.
All this is very interesting because it
is so timely, but it is neither very pro-
found nor very happy. Mr.. DANA and
Mr.. WATTERSON are men of strong
personalities, capable of writing YigOr-
Gus English, and very familiar. the one
through his long life and the other
through his wide experience, with the
political history of the country. But
very few people learned in the craft
would select either of them as an ideal
moulder of public opinion or readily
agree that they should be selected as
models either of style or of method, if
it is the editors function to be guide
and teacher of the masses.
No cleverer journal is published in
the world than the Sun, but its bright
est things are in its news columns.
There it is witty, alert, vigorous. reada-
bic and timely. Over its editorials,
however, the most enthusiastic reader
glOwS little weary; and, unless he is
subtle enough to see their hidden mean
lug, perhaps little provoked and irri-
tated. The Sun for one thing gives the
news of the day on which it is printed,
and gives it well; but by curious rule
of its office. if it comments at all in its
editorial page on subjects of immediate
interest, the subjects are cleaned not
from the news of to-day, but from the
news of yesterday. If its theory
of an editorial pur pose were the one
which Mr.. HILLS seems to attribute to it,
it would surely fail by adhering to a
programme like this. You cannot di-
rect mems minds to think correctly on
passing events if you postpone the
attempt until after the events are past
and your readers have forgotten about
them. If editorials are like blows
which shape the iron, they have to be
struck while the iron is hot, and it will
do little TO point the moral of yester-
days catastrophe when your news col
umn is fascnatingly adorned by the
tale of tO-day's horror.
In point of fact, if Mr.. DANA has any
theory as to an editorial function, it is
probably the same one which Mr.. WAT
TERSoN'S paper also illustrates. The
Courier-JOurnal is probably the most
conspicuous sheet published in the
South, has very great circulation and
is extensively and eagerly read. And
yet it would be very daring for any one
to say that it has changed one iota the
prevailing thought of the region in
which it is so highly valued. Year after
year of studying the Courier Journal
has left the South with the same points
of view, the same prejudices and the
same ambitions, as far as anything it
has effected is concern ed, as it had at
the beginning. And year after year of
the most faithful peruSal of the Suns
editorial page would leave the average
reader of precisely the same opinion, as
far as any influence it has had on him
is concerned, as though he had never
seen the paper at all.