Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1896-04-03

until 1t shall be fixed institution, Ma
tlonal fact, demand more qualities than any
business on earth. If you feel like starring
any newspaper, secular or religious. under
stand that you are being threatened WITH
softenihg Of the brain or lunacy, and: throw
ing your pocketbook into your wifes lap,
start for some insane asylum before you 9o
something desperate. Meanwhile, 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 Des'
printers ink should give at least one stick
full OF epitaph. II it was good paper say
"Peace to the 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
infexible constancy and uniformity OF lie,
persisted in the practice Of every human
vice, excepting prodigality and hypocrisy.
| His Unsuitable avarice exempted MIN IRON
the first, bis matchless imprudence from the
second" l say this because l want you TO
know that good, healthy, long lived, enter
tanning newspaper Is not an easy. pressing,
but one that comes to Us through the lire.
First Of all newspapers make knowledge
democratic and for the multitude. The puo-
| lie library is a haymow so high up that Few
ran reach 1t, while the newspaper throws
| down the forage to our feet Public libraries
are the reservoirs where the great floods are
stored high upand away of. The newspa'
per Is the tunnel that brings them down to
| the pitchers of all the peope. The chief use
| of great libraries is to make newspapers out
Of. Great Libraries make q few men and wo-
men very wise. Newspapers lift whole Ma
| tons into the sunlight. Better have 6Ol,-
100000 people moderately intelligent than
100, 900 solons.
A false impression is abroad that newspa-
per knowledge Is ephemeral because periodt-
Gals are thrown aside, and not one out Of ten
thousand people files them for future refer
ence Such knowledge, so far from being
ephemera, goes into the very structure OF
the worlds heart and brain and decides the
destiny of churches and Nations. Knowl-
edge on the shelf Is of little worth 1t Is
knowledge afoot, nowedgs harnessed,
knowledge in revolution, knowledge
winged, knowledge projected. knowledge
thunderbolted. SO far from being ephemer-
al, nearly oil The best minds and hearts
have theft hands on the printing press
to-day and have had since 1t got emanci-
pated. Adams and Hancock and Oils used
to go to the Boston Gazette and compose ar
ticles on the rights of the people. Benjamin
Franklin, De Witt Clinton, Hamilton, JefTer-
son, Quincy, were strong in newspapsrdom.
Many of the immortal things that have beeL
published in book form first appeared in
what you may call the ephemeral periodi-
cal. All Macaulay's essays first appeared in
review. Ali Carlyle's, all Ruskin's,
all McIntosh's. all Sydney Smiths,
all Hazlitt's, all Thackerary's, all the elc-
waited works of fiction In our day are re-
prints from periodicals In which they APP
peared rs serials. Tennyson's poems, Burns's
poems, Longfellow's poems, Emerson's po-
ems, Lovell's poems, Whlttier's oems, were
once fugitive pieces. You cannot find ten
literary men in Christe1dom, with strong
minds and great hearts, but are or have been
somehow connecte with the newspaper
printing press. While the book will always
have its p'a ace, the newspaper is more potent.
Because the latter is multi udinous do not
conclude it is necessarily 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 AMI all the happiness Of
the next.
Again. good newspaper is a useful mir
ror of life rs it Is. 1t is sometimes COM
planned that newspapers report the evil when
they ought only to report the good. They
must report the evil as we'll as the good, or
how shall we know what is to be reformed,
what guarded against. what fought DOWN
newspaper that pictures only the honesty
and virtue of society is misrepresentation.
That family is best prepared 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 1t they
will be as poorly prepared to struggle with
1t as Child who Is thrown into the middle
of the Atlantic aui told to learn how to
swim. Our only complaint is when sin is
made attractive and morality dull. when vice
is painted with great headings aud good
deeds are put in obscure CORNERS. iniquity
set up in great primer and righteousness in
noDpare. Sin Is loathsome; make it loath-
some. Virtue is beautiful; make it beauti-
full.
1t would work vast improvement II all
our representations, political, literary
should for the most part drop their imper-
sonality. 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 comparatively small income,
and after awhile their hand forges 1t cum
ming, and they are without resources, LETT TO
die. Why NOT, at least, have his initial at
tached TO his most important work? 1t al
ways gave additional force to an article
when you occasionally saw added TO some
significant article in the old New York
Courier AMI Enquirer J. w. w.. or in The
Tribune Fl. G.. or in Tue Herald J. G.. B., or
in The Times II. J. r.. or III The Evening
Post W. G. b., or in The Evening Express
e. y.
While this arrangement would be a fair
and just thing for newspaper writers, it would
be a defense for the public. 1t is sometimes
true that things damaging to private charac-
ter are said. Who is responsible2 1t is the
"we'' of the editorial or report orial columns.
Every man in every profession or occupation
ought to be responsible for what he does.
No honorable man will ever wrtethat which
be would be afraid to sign. But thousands
of persons have suffered from the imperson-
atty Of newspapers. What can one private
citizen wronged in his reputation do in
contest with Misrepresentation multiplied
into twenty or fifty THOUSAND copies? An
Injustice done in print Is illimitaby worse
than an injustice done in private life. Dur
ing loss of temper man may say that Tor
which he will be sorry in ten minutes, but q
newspaper injustice has first 10 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 of the
issue, P,enty of time to correct. Plenty OF
time to cool off. Plenty OF time to repent.
But all that is hidden in the impersonallty'
of a newspaper. 1t will be long step for
ward when all is changed, and newspaper
writers get credit for the good and are held
responsible for the evil.
@Another step forward for newspaperdom
will be when in our colleges and univer-
stiles we open opportunities for preparing
candidates for the editorial chair. We have
in such institutions medical departments,
ok a1i ri al