The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-04-01

literary-should for the most part drop
their impersonality. This would DO
better Justice to newspaper writers.
Many Of the strongest and best writers
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 comparative small
income. and after awhile their hand
foreets lis cunning, and they are with
out resources. left to die. Why not
at least have his initial attached to his
most important work? 1talways 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., orin
The Tribune H g., or in The Herald
J. G. b, Or IN The Times II. J. r., or
in The Evening Post w. G. B., Or in
The Evening Express E. B.
While this arrangement would be
fair and just thing for newspaper writ
ers it would be a defense for the public.
1t is sometimes true that things dam
aging to private character are said.
Who is responsible? 1t isthe we o.
the editorial or reportorial columns.
Every man in every profession or oc-
cupation ought to be responsible for
what he does. No honorable man
would ever write that which he would
be afraid to sign But thousands Of
persons have suffered from the imper-
sonality newspapers. What can one
private citizen wroneed in his reputa
ton do in contest with misrepresen-
tation multiplied into 10000 or so, 00O
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
newspaper Injustice has first to 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. Plen-
ty of time to correct; plenty of time to
cool off; plenty Of time. to repent.
But all that is hidden in the impecson-
ality OF newspaper 1t will be a
long step forward when all is changed
and newspaper writers get credit for
the good and are held responsible for
the evil.
Another step forward for newspa
perdom will be when in our colleges
and universities We open opportunities
for preparing candidates for the edito-
rial chair. We have in such institu
tions medical departments, law de
partments. Why not editorial depart
ments. Do the legal and healing pro-
fessions demand more culture and
careful training than the editorial or
reportorial professions: l know men
may tumble by what seems accident
into a newspaper Office as they may
tumble into other occupations, but It
would be an incalculable advantage
if those proposing a newspaper life had
an institution to which they might 60
to learn the qualifications, the respon-
sibilities, the trials, the temptations,
the dangers, the magnificent opportu-
mites Of newspaper life. Let there be
! lectureship in which there shall ap-
pear the leading editors Of the United
States telling the story of their strug-
giles, their victories, their mistakes,
how they worked and what they found
out to be the best way of working.
There will be men who will climb
up without such aid into editorial pow
er and efficiency. So do men climb
up to success in other branches by
sheer grit. But if we want learned
institutions to make lawyers and ar
lists and doctors and ministers we
much more need learned Institutions
to make editors, who occupy pos
ton of influence hundredfold great
er I do not put the truth too strong
ly when I say the most potent lntu-
ence for good on earth is good editor,
and the most potent influence for evil
is a bad one. The best way to re-en-
force and improve the newspapers is to
endow editorial professorates. When
viii Princeton or Harvard Or Yale or
Rochester lead the way2
Another blessing of the newspancI
is the foundation it lays fc- accurate
history of the time in which we live.
We for the most part blindly guess
about the ages that altedate the news
paper and are dependent upon the pre-
judices of this or that historian. But
after 100 or 200 years what splendid
opportunity tEe historian will have to
teach the pee pie the lesson of this day.
Our Bancrofts got from the early news
papers of this country, from the Bos-
ton Newsletter, the New York Ga
zette and The American Rag Bag and
Royal Gazetteer and Independent
Chronicle and Massachusetts, Spy and
the Philadelphia Auorra accounts of
Perry's victory and Hamilton's duel
and Washington's death and Boston
massacre and the oppressive foreign
tax on luxuries which turned Boston
harbor into a teapot and Paul Revere's
midnight ride and Rhode Island re-
bellion and South Carolina nulli-
fcation. But what field for the
chronicler of the great future when he
opens the files of 100 standard Ameri-
can newspapers, giving the minutes
Of all things occurring under the So
cial, political, ecclesiastical, interna
tional headings, Five hundred years
from now, if the world lasts so long,
the student looking for stirring, deci
sive history Will pass by the misty cor
ridors of other centuries and say to the
libraries, Find me the volumes that
give the century il which the
American presidents were assassinat'
ed, the civil war enacted, and the cot.
ton gin, the steam locomotive and tele
graph and electric pen and telephone
and cylinder presses were invented
Once more l remark that a good |
newspaper is blessing as an evange-
listic influence. You know there is a
great change III our day taking place. |
All the secular newspapers of the day
for am not speaking now of the
religious newspapers-all the secular
newspapers of the day discuss all the
question of God, eternity and the dead
and all the questions of the past, pres