Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1896-03-23

paper. We would have
BETTER APPRECIATION
Of this blessing if We knew the money,
the brain, the losses. the exasperations,
the anxieties, the wear and tear Of
heartstrings involved IN the production
of a good newspaper Under the i'm
preston that almost anybody can make
a newspaper, scores OF inexperienced
capitalists every year enter the list,
and, consequently. during the last few
years, a newspaper has died almost
every day. The disease is epidemic.
The larger papers swallow the smaller
ones, the whale taking down fifty min
nows at one swallow. With more than
seven thousand dailles and weeklies in
the United States and Canadas, there
are but thirty-six a half century old.
Newspapers do not average more than
FIVE years existence. The most OF them
die Of cholera infantum. 1t is high
time that the people found out that
the most successful way to sink money
and keep il sunk is to start a newspa-
per. There comes a time when almost
everyone is smitten with
THE NEWSPAPER MANIA
and starts one, or have stock in one he
must or die.
The course Of procedure is about this:
"A literary man has an an agricultural
or scientific or political or religious idea
which he wants 10 ventlate. He has
no money Of his own-hterary men sell
dom have. But he talks Of his ideas
among confidential friends until they
become inflamed with the idea, and
forthwith they buy type and press. and
rent composing room. and gather
corps Of editors. and with a prospectus
that proposes to cure everything, the
first copy is flung on the attention of
an admiring world. After a while one
of the plain stockholders finds that no
great revolution has been effected by
this daily or weekly publication; that
neither sun nor moon stands still: that
the world goes on lying and cheating
and stealing just as it did before the
first issue. The aforesaid matter-Of
+ fact stakeholder wants TO sell out his
stock but nobody wants TO buy, and
other stockholders get infected and sick
of newspaperdom. and an enormous bill
lanche and the printers refuse 10 work
until back wages are paid up. and the
I cCmpositor bows TO the managing edi-
tor. and the managing editor bows 10
the editOr-in-chief. and the editor-in-
chief bows to the directors. and the di-
+ rectors bow 70 the world at large and
all the subscribers wonder why their
4 paper doesn't come. The world will
have TO learn that newspaper
+ Is AS MUCH OF AN INSTITUTION
as the Bank of England or Yale College,
and is not an enterprise. If you have
the aforesaid agricultural. or scientific,
or religious. or political idea to vend-
late YOU had better charge upon the
world through the columns already es-
I Cablished. Ii is folly for anyone who
cannot succeed at anything else to try
newspaperdOm. If you cannot climb
I the hill back Of your house il is folly TO
try the sides OF the Matterhorn.
To publish a newspaper requires the
skill. the precision, the boldness, the
/ vigilance, the strategy, Of a command
I er-in-Chief. TO edit a newspaper re-
Quires that one be a statesman an es-
/ sayist. q geographer, a statistician. and
/ in acquisition. encyclopaedia. To man
/ to govern, to propel a newspaper until
/ it shall be a fixed institution. a national
fact. demand more qualities than any
/ business on earth. If YOU feel like
+ starting any newspaper. secular or re-
ligious, understand that you are being
/ threatened with sOftening of the brain
or lunaCy and throwing your pocket
/ book into your wiie's lap. start for some
/ insane asylum before you do something
I desperate. Meanwhile, as the dead
I newspapers. week by week. are carried
out 70 the burial, all the living news
/ papers give respectful obituary, telling
when they were born and when they
/ died The best printers ink should
/ give at least
ONE STICKFUL OF EPITAPH.
If it was a good paper. say. Peace to
/ its ashes" If it was bad paper, l sug-
gest the epitaph written for Francis
ChartreuSe: Here continueth TO rot
the body of Francis Chartreuse, who
with an inflexible consistency and uni
fOrmity OF life. persisted in the practice
of every human vice. excepting prodi-
gality and hypocrisy; his Unsuitable av-
arise exempted him from the first, his
matchless impudence from the second. "
/ say this because l want you to know
that a good. healthy. long lived. enter
tanning newspaper is not an easy bless
ing, but one that comes to us through
the fire.
First Of all, newspaper make knowl-
edge democratic and for the multitude.
The public library is a hay nov so
high up that few can reach il. while
the newspaper throws down the forage
TO our feet Public libraries are the
reservoirs where the great floods are
stored high up and away off. The
newspaper is the tunnel that brings
them down 10 the pitchers Of all the
people. The chief use Of great libraries
is TO make newspapers out Of Great
libraries make a few men and women
very wise. Newspapers
LIFT WHOLE NATIONS
into the sunlight. Better have fifty
million people moderately intelligent
than one hundred thousand Salons. A
false impression Is abroad that news
paper knowledge is ephemeral because
periodicals are thrown aside. and not
one out of ten thousand people files
them for future reference. Such knowl-
edge, so far from being ephemeral, goes
into the very structure OF the worlds
heart and brain, and decides the destiny
of Churches and Nations. knowledge
on the shelf is Of little worth. II is
knowledge afoot, knowledge harnessed.
knowledge in revolution. knowledge
winged knowledge projected, knowl-
edge thunder-bOlted. SO far from be-
voor1r- the ho.t IN. =. -