The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1894-05-05
IT'S RELATIONS
To The Public And Now The
Newspaper
SHOULD SERVE ITS CONSTITUENCY
The Press Is Advancing and the Day is
Not Far Distant When the Country
Press VIII be Largely ON the Same
Plane as its Metropolitan Contempor-
ary-An Address by Editor Sturgiss
Of UniOntown.

At recent meeting of the veterans
Of .UniOntown and vicinity in response
to the toast, the Press, Mr.. o. ].
Sturgiss delivered the following re-
marks:
Having thus adverted TO the SER
vices of the press and its relations to
the public in times of war, and its
support Of the soldiers cause during
and since that struggle. it may not be
out of place TO say something here
touching the relations of the newspa-
per to the public in time of peace.
And, first, | affirm there is no other
business so intimately connected with
our daily life about which there are
more false notions than those concern
ing the newspaper in its relation to
men and things. 1t seems to be a
common impression that the newspa-
per is sort of public Institution on
which everybody has claim, some
right to say in its management or
to a kick if its policy does not suit
him. For that reason a newspaper
is constantly subjected to, demands
that are unreasonable and unjust. If
a man goes into the mercantile bust
ness you do not expect to control his
policy or shape his views simply be-
cause you buy his commodities. You
take his goods, he takes your money:
that ends the transaction. The news
paper also does legitimate merchan-
dising business. 1t deals in news and
advertising space. That is its esc4a-
modify 1t pays for this news what
it costs to collect, print and publish
it, including the interest on invested
capital, which in Fayette county
alone is about $50, 900 1t sells this
news for the price of the paper and
considering the labor involved, the
money expended and the capital in
vested in its production there is moth
ing so cheap as the American newspa-
per. nothing that gives so much for
so little. Mr. Dana says it costs about
81, 900 day to issue the New York
Sun-price two cents. That would buy
a good average hundred acre farm in
Fayette county. Multiply that by
800 and the years total runs into mil
lions. Few people have any adequate
idea of what it costs to run a newspa-
per i'll an ordinary country town The
failure to appreciate this. and to
grasp the business relation which the
editors enterprise sustains to other
enterprises, explains the large number
of newspaper failures that are record
ed and the vast amount of money an
nually sunk in the business. A news
paper wag who once plunged into the
business without knowing much about
it, summed up his own experience
and struck responsive chord in many
disappointed heart by writing this
epigrammatic valedictory:
''Man's yapor,
Full of woes,
Starts a paper,
Up he goes
What then is the status of the
newspaper? 1t is private enterprise.
Its proprietor, whether individual, firm
or company, publishes it for profit, to
make living out of it, just as an in
diyidual Incorporation goes into the
manufacturing or banking business.
The motive here is no lower, the call
ing no less honorable, than is his who
enters any other vocation or calling
of semi-public character. The same
obligation of moral and business in
tegrity rests upon the press as upon
other professions and businesses, and
the fact that an occasional newspaper
prostitutes its columns to unworthy
ends no more condemns journalism as
a profession or calling, than the legal
or medical profession is made unwor-
thy of public confidence because of is
olated cases of unprofessional or dis
honorable conduct by one of its mem
beers. a newspaper gets no special
credit for maintaining high moral
tone. but it gets plenty of censure if
anything creeps into its columns to
lower that tone. 1t is expected to be
virtuous as matter of course So
eminent an authority as Charles Dud-
ley Warner says that the moral tone
of the average newspaper is higher
than the average moral tone of the
community in which it is published.
The press would be accorded more
credit if the public knew how much
questionable stuff is studiously kept
out of the news columns and what
sums of money are refused for the
papers influence for questionable
schemes or its space for questionable
advertisements. In the Prohibitory
Amendment campaign of 1889. GER
tain papers in Fayette county were
asked to name their price TO throw
their influence against the amend
ment, or if they would not go that
far, then to open their columns for
printing as advertisements, the ar
guments against prohibition, that
were being, sent out by the liquor
league, though that refusal meant the
closing of the cash drawer to enough
money to have paid the printers bills
for many weeks. The same papers
printed column upon column of ar
guments furnished by the temperance
committee, but neither received nor
expected one cent therefor. This is
only one of the many instances where
in this wicked world the righteous has
the approval of his conscience for do
ing what he believes to be right and
paying for it in the face of tempting
pecuniary offers to do the opposite
Now, what are the so-called
rights" which the public has in the
newspaper? Simply those which it
pays for, and no more. The idea that
man has the right to interfere in
the conduct of paper because he is a