The morning call., 1893-11-13

body reads the newspapers. They are the
peoples library. There are $1,000 periodi-
Gals publis ed in this country. an of these
1900 are daily newspapers, and they issued
1000, 600, 900 copies last year.
"Ihe newspaper is Ubiquitous in our
modern life. It is in the lauy's boudoir
and in the prisoners cell; in the cars, in
the hotel. on the bulletin board, every
where.
"The worklngman picks up his paper
during his few minutes respite at DO on
the business man bolts his lunch with one
eye on the paper. ard the miner or rancher
in his remote cabin enjoys Its visits.
"Great is the power of the press! Thomas
Jefferson said, III had to choose between
q Government without newspaper and a
newspaper with out Government would
choose the latter He knew how in Reyo-
lutionary times the Adamses, Otis and
Hancock had gone into the sanctum of the
old Boston Gazette and there forged their
thunderbolts against British oppression.
"What is a good newspaper? / know it
is easy for the journalists to retort that
editors know more about making news
papers than do minister's; but the editors
give us much ponderous advice about
sermon-making. and if we return the COM
pliment [ submit that honorS are easy,
especially as we read the papers rather
more, I suspect, than the newspaper men
hear sermons.
"a good newspaper is not simply a
scheme for private mOney-making. 1t is
like a great river which no man or cor
poration should be allowed to buy or own
il is a highway for all the people, and on
its bosom floats the hopes and destiny Of
the nation. A good newspaper will be
something larger aud broader than the
man who owns or edits 1t.
''Our complaint of the average daily
paper is not that 1t holds the mirror up to
nature. but that it holds up distorted one,
showing good and evil out of their
true proportions and in false per-
spective. Our complaint of il is that
it makes the good stupid and the evil at
tractive. after the manner of the French
novel; that it puts the evil under scare
headlines and the good in an obscure cor
ner; that it sets up vice In great primer
type and virtue in Donpareil; that it
spreads before Us for our breakfast great
barbecues of crime served up, grant you.
in the highest style of art, but all the more
dangerous tor that. Arnold of Rugby said
that he read the daily paper to sea how
God had governed the world since yester-
day, but perusal of many Of our dailies
would give one the impression that the
Almighty had abdicated and that satan is
on the throne.
THE press is indeed the mirror of the
daily life of the world. but it performs its
hlgheSl fnDctlon In selecting what II shall
reflect, for it is read by the young boy before
he cons his morning lesson, and by the young
girl in her boudoir and bedroom, and it
drops into these young lives facts and
thoughts and impressions that shall bear
sweet or bitter fruit in the after years.
"For the newspaper opens all the doors
of the mind and eDt tiers for good or i'll. 1t
has un challenged admission TO the home
and uDrivaled influence there. 1t exer-
cses the function of critic and censor. of
preacher and teacher. And you and
have known the moral nature of youth
soiled and spoiled by newspapers dripping
with moral r0ttenness-papers that sneer
at purity and pander to vice.
Tine right to publish the news because
ii is news has no basis In law or morals !;
nor dare any journalist assert his claim by
applying it to other vacations or by carry
ing it out to its logical sequence in his own.
Every editor has constantly to draw the
line between what is fit and what is unfit
for publication; he can draw it where he
pleaSes, and what we ask and demand is
that he shall draw it good ways farther
Oh the hither side of indecency.
How purify the press? Let us use il
rather than abuse it. There can be no
greater injustice than an indiscriminate
assault upon the press. The papers were
never so well disposed toward religion
never published more matter upon the sub
Ject. believe IL is possible for us to Sc
cure the secular press as mighty re-
enforcement to the cause of religion By
making 1t more the avenue Of religious ill.,
formation"