Connecticut western news., 1896-03-26

plaint is when sin ia made attractive and morality dull, when vice is painted with great headings and good deeds are put in obscure corners, iniQuity set up in great primer and righteousness in non- pareil Sin is loathsome; make it loath- some. Virtue is beautiful: make it beau. tiful
 It would work a vast improvement if all our papers-reigious, political, lit- erary-should for the most part drop their impersonality. This would do bet ter 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 in- come, and after awhile their hand for gets it cunning. and they are without resources, left to die. Why not, at least. have his initial attached to his most i'm portant work? It always gave additional force to an article when you occasional ly saw added to some significant article in the old New York Courier and En- quirer I w.. w., or in The Tribune H. G.. or in The Herald J. O. B., or in The Times H. J. R., or in The Evening Post W. C. B., or in The Evening Ex- press E. B.
 While this arrangement would be 8 fair and just thing for newspaper writ CTS, it would be defense for the pub lie. It is sometimes true that things damaging to private character are said. Who is responsible? It is the i've" of the editorial or reportorial columns. Every man in every profession or occu- patton ought to be responsible for what he does. No honorable man will ever write that which he would be afraid to sign. But thousands of persons have suffered from the impersonality of newspapers. What can one private citi- zen wronged in his reputation do in a contest with misrepresentation multi piled into twenty or fifty thousand copiesy An injustice done in print is il- limitably worse than an injustice done in private life. During loss of temper 8 man may say that for which he will be sorry in ten minutes, but a newspaper injustice has first to be written, set up in type. then the proof taken of and read and corrected, and then for six or ten hours the presses are busy running of the issue. Plenty of time to correct. Plenty of time to cool off. Plenty of time to repent But all that is hidden in the impersonality of newspaper. It will be long step for VI ard when all is changed. and newspaper writers .get credit for [ good and are held respon- eible for the evil
 The Most Potent Inanence.
 Another stt.a forward for newspaper dom will be w hen in qour colleges and universities we open opportunities for preparing candidates for the editorial chair. We have in such institutions medical departments, law departments Why not editorial departments? Do the legal and healing professions demand more culture and careful training than the editorial or reportorial professional know men may tumble by what seems accident into newspaper office as they may tumble into other occupations, but it would be an incalculable advantage if those proposing Q newspaper life had an institution to which they might go to learn the qualifications, the responsi. bilities.i the trials, the temptations, the dangers. the magnificent opportunities. of newspaper life. Let there be lec tureship in which there shall appear the leading editors of the United States tell ing the story of their strugg les. their victories, their mistakes, how they work ed and whstshey found out'to be the best way of working. There will be strong men who will climb mp without such aid into editorial power 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 artists and doctors and ministers, we much moro need learned institutions to make editors, who occupy position of influence a hundredfold greater. l do not put the truth too strongly when I say. the most potent influence for good potent influence for evil is bad one. The best way to re-enforce and improve the newspaper is to endow editorial pro- fessorates. When will Princeton or Har- yard or Yale or Rochester lead the way? Another blessing of the newspaper is the foundation it lays for accurate his tory of the time in which we live. We for tho most part blindly guess about the ages that antedate the newspaper and are dependent upon the prejudices of this or that historian. But after a hundred or two years what a splendid opportunity the historian will have to teach the people the lesson of this day. Our Bancrofts got from the early news papers of this country, from the Boston Newsletter, the New York Gazette, i and The American Rag Bag. and Royal Gazetteer and Independent Chronicle, and Massachusetts Spy, and the Phila- delphia Aurora, accounts of Perry's vic tory. and Ramilton's duel, and Wash ington's death, and Boston massacre, and the oppressive foreign tax on lux uries which turned Boston harbor into a teapot. and Paul Revere's midnight 1 ride. and Rhode Island rebellion. and South Carolina nullifaotion. But what a ture when he opens the files of hun dred standard American newspapers, | giving the minutise of all things occur ring under the social, political, eoclesi- | astical. international headingsl Five | hundred years from now, if the world lasts so long, the student looking for | stirring. decisive history will pass by the misty corridors of other centuries and say to the libraries, "Find me the volumes that give the century in 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. :" Front Wheel of tho Lords Chariot Once mora I remark that . good newspaper is blessing as an evangelist
 ic influence. You know there is great change in our day taking place. All the not speaking now of the religious news papers-all the secular newspapers of | the day discuss all the questions of