Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1896-04-01
THE NEWSPAPERS.
Eyes That Are waschful to See the
Worlds ooings Of Day.
Mistakes Sometimes Occur without Inteu-
oen 10 he uarmfai-rhc Papers Must
frtnt the k,u as Well as the Good
>ews-Dr. rsimaSes sermon.

Dr. 1almage's text Sunday was:
And the wheels were full of eyes -
Ezekiel Y, IL For all the Athenians
aud strangers which were there spent
their time at nothing else but either to
tell or to hear some new thing" Acts
xvii. 81.
What is preacher to do when he
finds two texts equally good
aud suggestivca In that per-
plexity take both. Wheels full
of cycsp What but the wheels
of newspaper printing press? Other
wheels are blind. They roll on, pull
Ing or crushing. Tho manufacturers
wheel, how IL grinds the operator with
fatigue, and rolls over nerve and mus
Gle and bone and heart, not knowing
what 1t does. The sewing machine
wheel sees not the aches and pains
fastened TO it-tighter than the band
that moves II, sharper than the needle
which IL plies. Every moment of every
hour of every day of every month of
every year there are hundreds of thou
sands of wheels of mechanism, wheels
OF enterprise, wheels of hard work. in
motion, but they are eyeless. Not SO
the wheels of the printing press. Their
entire business is TO look and report.
They are fun OF optic nerves, from axle
To periphery, They are like those spoken
of by Ezekiel, as full of eyes. sharp
eyes, near-sighted. far-sighted. They
look up. They look down. They
look far away. They take in the next
street and the next hemisphere.
Eyes of criticism, eyes of investigation
eyes that twinkle with mirth, eyes
glowing with Indignation, eyes tender
with love; eyes of suspicion, eyes of hope.
olue eyes, black eyes, green eyes, holy
eyes, evil eyes, sore eyes, political eyes;
literary eyes, historical eyes, religious
eyes; eyes that SEQ everything. "And
the wheels wero full OF eyes" But in
my second text Is the worlds cry for
the newspaper. Paul describes n class
OF people in Athens who spent their
time either in gathering tho news or
telling IL. Why especially in Athens?
because the more intelligent people be-
como, the more inquisitive they are
not about small things, but great
things.
The question then most frequently is
the question now most frequently
asked: What is the news? To arfa,yer
the centuries have put their wits to
work. China first succeeded, and has
at Peking n newspaper that has been
printed every week for 1000 years,
printed on silk. Rome succeeded by
publishing the Acta Diurna, in the
same column putting fires, muir
ders, marriages and tempests.
France succeeded by physician
writing out the news of the day for
his patients England succeeded under
Queen Elizabeth i'm first publishing the
news of the Spanish Armada, and go
ing on until she had enough enter
prise, when the battle of Waterloo was
fought, deciding the destiny of Europe,
to give it one-third of column in the
London Morning Chronicle, about as
much as the newspaper OF our day
gives of n small fire. America succeeded
by benjamin Harris first weekly paper
called Public Occurrences, published in
Boston in 1890, and by the first daily,
the American Advertiser, published in
Philadelphia in 1884.
The newspaper did not suddenly
spring upon the world, but came grad
ually. The genealogical line of the
newspaper Is this The Adam of the
race was circular or news-letter, Gre
ated by Divine impulse in human nat
ure, and the circular begat the pam
phlet, and the pamphlet begat the
quarterly, and the quarterly begat the
weekly, and the weekly begat the
semi-weekly, and the semi-weekly be-
gat the daily. But alas! by what a
struggle it came to its present develop
VA
been demonstrated than tyranny and
superstition shackled 1t. There is
nothing that despotism so fears and
hates as u printing press. 1t has too
many eyes in its wheel great writer
declared that the king of Naples made
1T unsafe for him TO write of anything
but natural history. Austria could not
endure Kossuth's journalistic pen,
pleading for the redemption of Hun
gary. Napoleon l., trying TO keep his
iron heel on the neck Of nations. said:
Editors are the regents of sovereiQns
and the tutors of nations, and are only
fit for prisons" But the battle for the
freedom OF the press was fought i'm
the courtrooms of England and Amer
lea, and decided before this century
began by Hamilton's eloquent plea
for j. Peter Zengers Gazette in
America and Erskine's advocacy
OF the freedom of publication in
England. These were the Marathon
and Thermopylae in which the freedom
OF the press was established In the
United States and Great Britain, and
all the powers Of earth and hell will
never again be able TO put on the hand
cuffs and hopples OF literary and polit-
ical despotism. 10 is notable that
Thomas jefferson, who wrote the Dec
laration Of American Independence,
wrote also: IF / had 90 choose be-
tween government without newspa-
pcrs or newspapers without n govern
mcnt, ] should prefer the latter
Stnng by some base fabrication coming
20 us in print we come 10 write or
speak Of the unbridled printing press;
or, our new book ground up by
an unjust critic, we come 90 write
or speak Of the unfairness OF
the printing press; or, perhaps through
our own indistinctness OF utterance, we
are reported AZ saying just the opposite
81 what we did say, and there is small
riot Of scmicoiOns, hyphens and com
mas. and we come 90 speak or write Of
the laundering printing press; OF, sec
ing pepper filed with divorce cases or
social scandal we speak and write Of