The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1896-03-25


But discourse now on a subject you
have never heard-the immeasurable
and everlasting blessing of good
newspaper. Thank God for the wheel
full of eyes. Thank God that we do
not have-like the Athenians--to go
about to gather up and relate the It'd
ings of the day, since the omnivorous
newspaper does both for us. The
grandest temporal blessing that God
has given to the nineteenth century is
the newspaper. We would have better
appreciation Of this blessing If we
knew the money, the brain, the losses,
the exasperations, the anxieties, the
wear and tear of heartstriugs involved
in the production of good newspaper.
Under the impression that almost |
anybody can make a newspaper, |
scores of inexperienced capitalists |
every year enter the lists, and,
consequently, 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 so min
nows at one swallow. With more than
1000 dailies and weeklies in the United
States and Canadas, there are but SO a
half century old. Newspapers do not
average more than five years exist
ence. The most of them die of cholera
infantum. 1t is high time that the peo-
pie found out that the most successful
way to sink money and keep it sunk is
to start newspaper. There comes
time when almost every one is smltten
with the newspaper mania and starts
one, or have stock in one he must or die.
The course of procedure is about this:
A literary man has an agricultural or
scientific or political or religious idea
which he wants to ventilate. lie has
no money of his own-literary men
seldom have. But he talks of his ideas
among confidential friends until they
become inAamed with the idea, and
forthwith they buy type and press, and
rent composing room, and gather
corps of editors, and with prospectus
that proposes to cure everything, the
first copy is flung on the attention OF
an admiring world. After awhile one
of the plain stockholders finds that no
great revolution has been effected by
the daily or weekly publication; that
. neither sun nor moon stands still; that
the world goes on lying and cheating
and stealing just as it did before the
: first issue. The aforesaid matter-of-
= fact stockholder wants to sell out his
y stock, but nobody wants to buy
aNa A1H
' fected and sick of newspaperdom, ano
an enormous bill ut the paper facto
nv rolls into an avalanche, and the
} printers refuse to work until bacl
= wages are paid up, and the compositol
bows to the managing editor, and th'
managing editor bows 30 the editor-in
y chief, and the editor-in-chief bows t.
- = the directors, and the directors bow t.
% the world at large, and all the sub
y scribers wonder why their paper doesn
~ come. The world will have to lear
% that newspaper is as much OF an IN
stitution as the Bank of England o
~ Yale College, and is not an enterprise
- -. If you have the aforesaid agricultural
~ or scientific. or religious, or politica
.:1 io idea to ventilate, you had better charg
~ upon the world through the column
NC already established. 1t is folly for any
=. one who cannot succeed at anythin
~ ~ else to try newspaperdom. Ii you cal
o1 not climb the hill back of your hous
"S DO it is folly to try the sides of the Ma
- terhOrn.
IL, First of all, newspapers make know
eu edge democratic and for the multitud
oS The public library is hay-mow so hle
ne up that few can reach it, while I'll
IN newspaper throws down the forage
our feet. Public libraries are the rese
ny voirs where the great floods are store
io- io high up and away off. The newspap
ne is the tunnel that brings them down
me the pitchers of all the people. The chi
re- use of great libraries is to make new
aa- papers out of. Great libraries ma
pa q few men and women very wis
ar al Newspapers lift whole nations into t
Vic sunlight. Better have 50,00O00O pt
"a lni- pie moderately intelligent than 10
'ne 900 Solons A false impression
~ ~ abroad that newspaper knowled
mo is ephemeral because periodicals a
,ra- thrown aside, and not one c
ION of 10000 people files them
les future reference Such knowled!
ing SO far from being ephemeral, goes II
iOs the very structure of the worlds hei
naU and brain, and decides the destiny
lor churches and nations. knowledge
'ral the shelf is Of little worth. 1t is knoV
ule edge afoot, knowledge harness
'aa- knowledge in revolution, knowled
iiryy, winged, knowledge projected, kno
nlS edge thunder-bolted. So far from bel
alo' ephemeral, nearly all the best mil
gns and hearts have their hands on
my printing press to-day, and have
Che ,C,he since it got emancipated. Adams, 8
inc Hancock, and Otis used to go to
lca' Boston Gazette and compose artic
gan on the rights of the people. Benjan
eser Franklin, De Witt Clinton, Hamilt
nrs- jefferson, Quincy, were strong
'uO- newspaperdom Many of the INN
cne tai things that have been publisl
men m in book form first appeared in W
1ap you may call the ephemeral p
reaS odical. All Macaulay's esaays t
ana appeared in review. All Carlyl
on all llRuskin's all McIntosh's, all S
rary ney Smiths, all Hazlitt's, all That
aoie rays, all the elevated works of fict
Olle in our day, are reprints from perit
'nce' Gals in which they appeared as seri
pe- Tennyson's poems, Burns poe
e"s- Longfellow's poems, Emerson's poe