Los Angeles herald., 1892-01-06
UNPARALLELED NEWSPAPER PROG
RESS,

In Lippincott's Magazine for January
there is paper from the pen of Col.
Alexander K Mcclure on The Editor
in-Chief. Colonel Mcclure is the ac-
compiished editor of the Philadelphia
Times. No one better than he is COM
petent to write such an article. He is
great influence in journalism and in
politics. Like most really superior
newspaper men, Colonel Mcclure
graduated from the school of prac-
tical journalism. He was first
prominently known as the editor
of the Chambersburg Repository. In
his early days he was his own leader
writer, reporter, news and telegraph
editor, book-keeper and solicitor. AL
though he now controls a powerful
metropolitan newspaper, which has an
army of employees, he has seen the day
when he not only made up but mailed
his own paper, and it did not give him
much trouble, either. The day of elab-
crate stats, expensive news service and
mammoth papers with immense circu-
lations, had not dawned when Colonel
Mcclure won his spurs in the journal
istic field.
OF course we have no desire to deprive
Lippincott's Of the just reward of its en-
terprise by transferring any of Colonel
McClure's admirable dissertation TO our
columns. The reader who desires to
listen to this famous gentleman ought
to hear him at length, and should buy
the magazine. We simply refer to his
screed to lay grounds for few brief re-
marks as to the enormous growth OF the
daily and weekly press in the Uni ted
States. 1t perhaps more admirably than
anything else could dol illustrates
Christ's parable of the mustard seed.
Forty years ago the newspapers even
of the city Of New York were compare
lively trifing affairs. There are num-
Der OF suburban towns in Los Angeles
county which today publish newspapers
which, in makeup, in news service, in
typographical attractiveness, far surpass
the New York Herald as it first came
from the hands of James Gordon Ben
nett. We have purposely left the word
ability out of this summary, because the
elder Bennett possessed consummate
newspaper genius. For years he was
his own leader writer and re-
porter, and most vigorous and
effective he was in both lines. His
journal was the original, by all accounts,
of Dickens's picture of the sRowdy
Journal" in Martin Chuzzlewit. The
caricature was perhaps overdrawn even
for that class of matter, but some of the
outlines were true to life. If, through
some OF his trenchant articles, Bennett
was assaulted by whip or cane, graphic
account of the incident was sure to ap-
pear in the Herald. This led the quid
nuncs to say that in his green and salad
days James Gordon Bennett was in the
habit of getting himself horsewhipped
In order to create a sensation.
The truth is that he had such
an Unsuitable appetite for news that he
would not exempt even himself from
the rule of reporting everything that oc-
CURED. This did not prevent the old
gentleman from leaving fortune to his
children amounting to $1,000 900, to-
gether with the New York Herald, whose
net income was reputed to figure up at
least half million dollars yearly.
The growth of such journals is one of
the marvels of the last half of the nine
teenth century. 1t seems like invading
the region of fairy land to recite
the bare facts. 1t is probable
that the circulation of any one of the
leading metropolitan dailies of New
York, Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago
ranges in the neighoorhood of loo, 900
to 1000 copies. In one instance, the
New York World, it is known to exceed
100000, and this enormous circulation
has been built up during the past five
or six years, and is due to the genius Of