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

BOSTON GdZeLle anu CO4upOSS a WV
on the rights of the people. BENJAMIN
Franklin, De Witt Clinton, Hamilton,
Jefferson, Quinsy, were strong in news
paperdom. Many of the immortal
things that have been published IN book
form first appeared in what you may
call the ephemeral periodical. All Ma
cauley's essays first appeared in a re-
view. All Carlyles, all Ruskin's, all
McIntoshs, all Sydney Smiths, all
Hazlitt's, all Thackeray's, all the ele-
waited works Of fiction in our day, are
reprints from periodicals in which they
appeared as serials. Tennyson's poems,
Burns's poems, Longfellow's poems,
Emerson's poems, Lowell's poems,
Winters poems, were once fugitive
pieces. You canot find ten literary men
in Christendom, with
STRONG MINDS AND GREAT
HEARTS,
but are or have been somehow connect
ed with the newspaper printing press.
While the book will always have its
place, the newspaper is more potent.
Because the latter is multitudinous, do
not conclude it is necessarily superb
cial. If man should from childhood
TO old age see only his Bible Webster's
Dictionary and his newspaper, he could
be prepared for all the duties OF this
life and all the happiness of the next.
Again, good newspaper is useful
mirror of life as it is. 1t is sometimes
complained that newspapers report the
evil when they ought only to report
the good. They must report the evil
as well as the good or how shall we
know what is to be reformed, what
guarded against, what fought down? A
newspaper that pictures only the hon
esty and virtue Of society is misrepre-
sentation. That family is best prepar-
ed for the duties of life which, knowing
the evil, is taught to select the good.
Keep children under the impression
that all is fair and right in the world,
and when they go out into it they will
be as poorly prepared to struggle with
il as a child who is thrown into the
middle of the Atlantic and told to learn
how TO swim.
OUR ONLY COMPLAINT
is when sin is made attractive and NOR
atty dull, when vice is painted with
great headlines and good deeds are put
in obscure corners, iniquity set up IN
great primer and righteousness in non
pareil. Sin is loathsome, make it
loathsome. Virtue is beautiful make 1t
beautiful.
1t would work a vast improvement
if all our representations, political,
literay-should for the most part drop
their impersonality. This would do
better justice TO newspaper writer's.
Many Of the strongest and best writer's
of the country live and die unknown,
and are denied their just fame. The
vast public never learns who they are.
Most Of them are on comparatively
| small income and after awhile their
hand forgets its cunning. and they are
without resources, left 10 die. Why not,
at least, have his initial attached TO
his most important work? 1t always
! gave additional force to an article when
You occasionally saw added TO some sig
nifcant article in the old New York
Courier and Enquirer J. W. w, or in
the Tribune II. G., or in the Herald J.
G. B.. or in the Times H. J. r., or in
the Evening Post w c. B., or in the
Evening Express Z, B. While this ar
Tangement would be a fair and just
thing for newspaper writers, it would
be
4 DEFENCE FOR THE PUBLIC.
1t is sometimes true that things damag-
ing to private character are said. Who
is responsible? IL is the I'VE" of the
editorial or reportOrial columns. Every
man in every profession or occupation
ought 10 be responsible for what he
does No honorable man win ever
write that which he would be afraid to
sign But thousands Of persons have
! suffered from the impersOnality of
| newspapers. What can one private
citizen wronged in his reputation do in
a contest with misreputation multi
piled into twenty or fifty thousand
/ copies? An injustice done in print is
illimitably worse than an injustice done
in private life. During loss of temper
/ man may say that for which he will be
| sorry in ten minutes; but a newspaper
injustice has first 20 be written, set up
in type, then the proof taken off, and
read and corrected, and then for six or
ten hours the presses are busy running
off the issue. Plenty of time to correct.
Plenty of time to cool of. Plenty of
time to repent But all that is hidden
in the impersonality of a newspaper. It
will be a long step forward when all is
changed, and newspaper writer's get
credit for the good and are held respon-
sible for the evil.
ANOTHER STEP FORWARD
for newspaperom will be when in our
colleges and universities We open OPP
portunities for preparing candidates for