The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1896-05-02

newspaper does both for us The
grandest temporal blessing that God
has given to the nineteenth century is
the newspaper. We would have bet
ter appreciation Of this blessing II
we knew the money, she brain, the
losses, the exasperations, the ankle
ties, the wear and tear of heartstrings
involved in the production of good
newspaper. Under the impression that
almost anybody can make 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 large
papers swallow the smaller ones, the
whale taking down so minnows at
ole swallow. With more than 1000
dailies and weeklies in the United
States and Canadas, they are but
thirty-six half century old. News
papers do not average more than i've
years existence. The most of them
die of cholera infantum. 1t is high
time that the people found. out that
the most successful way to sink money
and keep 1t sunk is to start newspa-
per. There comes time when almost
every one is smitten with the newspa-
per mania, and starts one, or have
sto elk 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-
duires that one be statesman, an
essayist, a geogfapher, a statistician,
and, in acquisition, encyclopaedia.
To man, to govern, to propel news
paper until it shall be a fixed institu-
ton, national fact, demand more
qualities than any business on earth.
ii you feel like starting any newspa-
per, secular or religious, understand
that you are being threatened with soft
ening of the brain or lunacy and throw
ing your pocketbook into your wife's
lap, start for some insane asylum be-
fore you do 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
best printers ink should give at least
one stickful of epitaph. If it was 2
good paper, say, "Peace to its ashes y
If It was bad paper, / suggest the
epitaph written for Francis Chart
reuse Here continueth to rot the
body of Francis Chartreuse, who, with
an infiexible constancy and uniformity
of life, persisted in the practice of every
human vice. except prodigality and
hypocrisy; his Unsuitable avarice ex-
empted him from the first, his match
less impudence from the second"
say this because l want you to know
that good, healthy, long-lived; entef'
tanning newspaper is not an easy bless
ing, but one that comes to us through
the fire.
First of all, newspapers make know l.
edge democratic and for the multi
tude. The public library is hay-now
so high up that few can reach it, while
the newspaper throws down the forage
to our feet. Public libraries are the
reservoir where the great floods are
stored high up and away off. The
newspaper is Che tunnel that brings
them down to the pitchers of all the
people. The chief use of great Ii
braries is to make Newspapers
out Of. Great libraries make a
few men and women very wise. News
papers lift whole nations into the sun
light. Better have 5o,0Oo.OOo people
moderately intelligent than 1000
Solons. 4 false impression Is abroad
that newspaper knowledge is ephe-
neral because periodicals are thrown
as de, and not one out of 10000 people
files them for future reference. Such
knowledge, SO far from being ephe-
neral, goes into the very structure o;
the worlds heart and brain, and de-
c;des the destiny of the churches and
nations. knowledge on the shelf Is oi
little worth. 1t is knowledge afoot
knowledge harnessed, knowledge in
revolution, knowledge winged, knowi
edge projected, knowledge thunder
bolted. So far from being ephemeral
| nearly all the best minds and heart.
have their hands on the printing press
| to-day, and have had since it wa:
emancipated. Adams, and Hancock
and Otis used to go to the Boston Ga
zette and COMPOSE articles on the
rights of the people. Benjamin Frank
lin, Dewitt Clinton, Hamilton, Jeffer
son, Quincy, were strong in newspa
pcrdom. Many of the immorta
things that have been published il
book form first appeared in what 70,
may call the ephemersl periodical
All Macadlay's essays fist appeared il
d review All Carlyle's, all Ruskin'
all McIntosh's. all Sydney Smiths, al
Hazlitss, all Thackery's, all the eleva
ted works of fiction in our day, are re
prints from periodicals in which the,
appeard as serials Tennyson's poems
Burns poems, Longfellow's poems
Emerson's poems, Lowell's poems
Whittier's poems, were once fuRi
tive pieces. You can not fin
ten literary men in Christen
dom, with strong minds and grea
hearts. but are or have been somehow
connected with the newspaper print
ing press. While the book will Away
have it's place, the newspaper is NOR
potent. Because the latter is multi
tudinous, do not conclude it is hecei
safily superficial If a man shout
from childhood to old age see only hi
Bible, Webster's Dictionary and hi
newspaper, he could be prepared fo
| oil tho d,,t;oc Of fh;c life and all fh