The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-03-18
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
mas ADDRESS an THE KNIGHTS or
81. PATRICK'S BANQUET.


brilliant speech by the Editor of the Bos-
ton Pilot at the New Haven House Last
Nlght-"rhe press."
Mr., President and Fellow knights of st.
Patrick:
feel as diflident as a newspaper man
can feel in coming before such a brill
liant audience as this to read speech.
1t has been truly said that speech is
silver and silence golden; and when he
who cannot speak attempts to speak,
his only sure life-preserver is that
blessed bimetallic invention--a coin GER
tificate, of paper.
The press is a great power-one of
the greatest on earth. The newspapers
themselves admit that. But it is not
omnipotent, nor omniscient. 1t is con-
Quoted by ordinary, fallible mortals,
Woodworking men, who are trying to
earn an honest living-or, to earn liV-
Ing anyhoW-and who have no idea that
with them all wisdom shall die.
The only newspaper men to whom the
gift of omniscience has been granted
are the very young men. Sometimes
they are editors of college papers, and
sometimes they are youths whose Won
derful self-confdence is born of faith
omless ineXperience.
These, strictly speaking, are not
newspaper men. They belong to the
higher class called journalists" In
due time, if they be lucky, they gradu-
ate into the ranks of real newspaper
men. Then they find that their self
confidence diminishes with advancing
years and the slow development of the
eye-teeth.
l speak from experience as the eX-
editor of a college weekly, which had
a Furnishing career of one fortnight;
not as mentor to young Journalists in
a commonwealth where, l am in
formed, children are born with full sets
of teeth, and where every orchard
blooms perennially with clocks, nut
megs, and other ligneous products.
No experienced newspaper man es-
capes the discovery, sooner or later,
that, if most people know nothing-and
many people know little-and he doesn't
know very much then the combined
knowledge of all cannot, quite, equal
omniscience.
The editor is never allowed to forget
that his hardest duty is, not to collect,
but to select what is most suitable for
his paper, whether it is news, or COM
ment or forecast Whatever the pow
er the press may have, he knows that it
depends ultimately upon the discretion
which he may exercise in winnowing
the wheat from the chaff before him
and a good deal of chaff blows into the
most secluded sanctum.
He has learned many things, and is
sure of few. Perhaps, if you were to
ask him to tell you right away how
many letters there are in the English
alphabet, he might be able to answer
without consulting his Office boy, who is
more fresh from school than he But
he knows without consulting anybody
that the possible combinations of the
twenty-six letters Il consulted my office
boy on preparing this paper, and can
speak with confdence) are so numerous
that the thirteenth multiplication of
them amounts to 5549, SIT 800 in. ALL
Now, if you will take a slate-a large
slate-one about the size of the state of
Texas, and figure out the rest of that
multiplication, you will see that great
many combinations may be made with
these innocent looking twenty-six char
acters.
Of course the accepted words in the
language are infinitely fewer than the
number of such combinations; but the
striking thing about our language, and,
SO far as know, about all written Ian
guage, is that while its words seem to
be nearly all "rnisfits,' as to size, the
- l.. !
erage, as infexible as cast-iron.
No matter how you manipulate those
atoms Of the alphabet, no matter how
you use our mother tongue Crowded
that you use it in the form of coherent
discourse)-write as many hundred or
as many thousand words as you please
and the more the better-the general
average will be five letters to each
word. You may use the word cit" or
you may use the word ''impenetrabili-
ty;" you may use all the words in the
language; but, using them all in ra-
tional sequence, and not with intent to
confuse, they will average exactly five
letters to the word.
Nay, more They will average pre-.
cisely so many words to a line; so many
lines to a column; so many columns to
a page; and, should you care to follow
out the inquiry, so many repetitions of
this letter or that, to the column, page
or book.
Wherefore, when you pick up your
Sunday newspaper, Of four, eight, six
teen, thirty-two or five hundred and
sixty pages, as the case may be, and
find a typographical error-which you
rarely within it's columns, you may
rather admire the immense care with
which the whole work has been done
than censure the blemish or two in sc
vast and eXacting a task.
I do not say this in praise, and ]
haven't anything to say in blame, OF
the mammoth blanket-sheet newspaper;
but I notice, on examining the glorious
laws framed by your Puritan ancestors
these justly famous cerulean stat
utes of Connecticut-thatw while every
other form of notwithstanding is Sc
verely punished, there is no penalty
laid down for the crime of reading q
Sunday newspaper. Learned jurists
who have considered this problem, diff
fer about it's explanation. Some say
that there was no law against reading
Sunday newspapers because there were
no Sunday papers to read. And thai
sounds plausible, at least. Others hole
that the trainers of the Azure Acts
gave the matter due consideration, but