The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1896-04-03


| has given to the nineteenth century in
the newspaper. We would have bet
ter appreciation of this blessing if
we knew the money. the 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
one swallow. With more than 1000
dailies and weeklies i'm the United
States and Canadas, they are but
thirty-six half century old. News
papers do not average more than five
years existence. The most of them
die of cholera infantum. It is high
time that the people found out that
the most successful way to sink money
and keep it sunk is to start newspa-
per. There comes a time when almost
every one is smitten with the newspa-
per mania, and starts one, or have
sto ok in one he must or die.
To publish newspaper requires the
skill, the precision, the boldness, the
vigilance, the strategy of command
er-in-chief To edit a newspaper re-
quires that one be a statesman, an
essayist, a geographer, a statistician,
and, in acquisition, encyclopedia.
To man, to govern, to propel a news
paper until it shall be fixed institu-
ton, a national fact, demand more
qualities than any business on earth.
If 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 poclSetbook 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 tho
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
good paper, say, Peace to its ashes"
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 infexible 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 1 want you to know
that good, healthy, long-iived, enter
tanning newspaper is not an easy bless
ing, but one that comes to us through
the fire.
First of all, newspapers make knowl-
edge democratic and for the multi
tude. The public library is hay-mow
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 the tunnel that brings
them down to the pitchers of all the
people. The chief use of great IL
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,OO0,O00 people
moderately intelligent than 100, 900
Solons. A false impression is abroad
that newspaper knowledge Is ephe-
neral because periodicals are thrown
aside, 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 of
the worlds heart and brain, and de-
cides the destiny of the churches and
nations. knowledge on the shelf is of
little worth. 1t is knowledge afoot,
knowledge harnessed, knowledge in
revolution, knowledge winged, lxnowl-
edge projected knowledge thunder
bolted. So far from being ephemeral,
nearly all the best minds and hearts
have their hands on the printing press
to-day, and have had since it was
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 immortal
things that have been published in
book form first appeared in what you
may call the ephemeral periodical.
All Macaulay's essays first appeared in
a review. All Carlyle's, all Ruslxin's
all McIntosh's, all Sydney Smiths, all
Hazlitt's, all Thackery's, all the eleva-
ted works of fiction in our day, are re-
prints from periodicals in which they
appeard as serials. Tennyson's poems,
Burns poems, Longfellow's poems,
Emerson's poems, Lowell's poems,
Whittier's poems, were once fugi-
tive pieces. You can not find
ten literary men in Christen-
dom, with strong minds and great
hearts, but are or have been somehow
connected with the newspaper print
ing press. While the book will always
have its place, the newspaper is more
potent. Because the latter is multi
tudinous, do not conclude it is neces-
sarily superficial. If 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 and all the
happiness of the next.
Again, good newspaper is a useful
mirror of life as it is. 1t is sometimes
complained that new spapers report the
evil when they ought only to report
the good. They must report the evil
as well as the good, or how shall we
know what is TO be ref ormed, what
guarded again st, what fought down?
A newspaper that pictures only the
honesty and virtue of society is a mis-
representation. That family is best