The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1896-03-27

in the production of a good
newspaper. Under the impression that
almost anybody caP make q newspa-
per, scores of inexperienced capitalists
every year enter the lists, and, conse-
quently, during the last few years,
newspaper has died almost every day.
The disease is epidemic The larger
papers swallow the smaller ones, the
whale taking down fifty minnows at
one swallow. With more than 1000
dailies and weeklies in the United
States and Canada, there are but SO a
half centuary old. Newspape rs do not
average more than FIVE years exist
ence. The most of them die of cholera
infantum. 1t is high time that the
people found out that the most sue
cessful way to sink money and keep it
sunk is to start a newspaper. There
comes time when almost every one is
smitten with the newspaper mania and
starts one, or have stock in one he
must or die.
To publish a newspaper requires the
skill, the precision, the boldness, the
vigilance, the strategy of command
er-in-chief. To edit a newspaper re-
quires that one be a statesman, an
essayist, a geographer, a statistician,
and, in acquisition, encyclopaedia. To
man, to govern, to propel a newspaper
until it shall be fixed institution,
national fact, demand more qualities
than any other business on earth. If
you feel like starting any newspaper,
secular or religious, understand that
you are being threatened with soften
ing of the brain or lunacy, and throw
ing your pocket-book into your wife's
lap, start for some insane asylum be-
fore you do something desperate. Mean
while, as the dead newspapers, week
by week, are carried out to the burial, all
the living newspapers give respectful
obituary, telling when they were born
and when they died. The best print
er's ink should give at least one stick
full of epitaph. If it was good news
paper, say peace to it's ashes" If it
was bad paper, I suggest the epitaph
written for Francis Chartreuse: Here
continueth to rot the body of Francis
Chartreuse, who, with an infiexible
constancy and uniformity of life, per-
sisted in the practice of every human
vice, excepting prodigality and hypoc-
risv; his Unsuitable avarice exempted
| him from the first: his matchless impu-
dence the second" 1 say this because
I want you to know that a good,
healthy, long-lived, entertaining news
paper is not an easy blessing, but one
that comes to US through the fire.
First of all, newspapers make knowl
edge democratic and for the multitude.
/ The public library is a haymow so
high up that few can reach it, 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 to the pitchers of all the
people. The chief use of great libra
ries make few men and women very
wise. Newspapers lift whole nations
into the sunlight Better have 5O,OOO,-
600 people moderately intelligent than
100, 900 Solons. A false impression is
abroad that newspaper knowledge is
ephemeral because periodicals are
thrown aside and not one out of 10, 900
people files them for reference. Such
knowledge, so far from being ephem-
eral, goes into the very structure
of the worlds heart and brain. and
decides the destiny of churches and ma
lions. Knowledge on the shelf is Of
little worth. 1t is knowledge afoot,
knowledge winged, knowledge pro-
jected, knowledge thunder bolted. So
far as being ephemeral, nearly all the
best minds and hearts have their hands
on the printing press to-day, and have
had since it got emancipated. Adams,
and Hancock and Otis used to go to the
Boston Gazette and compose articles
on the rights of the people. benjamin
Franklin, Dewitt Clinton, Hamilton,
jefferson, Quincy, 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 Macaulay's essays first appeared
in a review. All Carlyle's, all Rus
Lzins, all McIntosh's, all Sydney Smiths,
| all Hazlitt's, all Thackeray's, all
/ the elevated works of fiction of
our day. are reprints from periodicals
| in which they appeared as serials
Tennyson's poems, Burns poems.
Longfellow's poems, Emerson's poems,
/ Lowelrs poems, Whittier's poems,
were once fugitive pieces. You cannot
find ten lite rary men in Christendom,
with strong minds and great hearts
/ but are or have been somehow con-
nected with the newspaper printing
press. While the book will always
have its place, the newspaper is more
/ potent Because the latter is multi
tudinous. do not conclude it is neces-
sarily superficial If a 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. a good newspaper is useful
mirror of life as il is IL is sometimes
| complained that newspapers report the
evil when they ought only 10 report
the good. They must report the evil
as well as the good, or how shall we
En0u- IL 70 ha hat