Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1897-10-16
LAST WEEKS OVERFLOW.
"The AII-ROund Editor"

Somebody sent the JOURNAL last
week II copy of the Norfolk (Na.) Pilot
with the appended article marked. 1t
is needless to say it is true from be
ginning to end, and it is no less unnec
essary to deplore the fact that large
brain power seems 'morc frequently
coupled with small pay :"
To black paper with a pencil, or pen and
ink, hardly take so much capacity as to black
shoes well with bIacking and brush. And
yet most people, and especially those who
have discovered that they can blacken paper
with facility, consider that full equipment
for journalism or literature or both.
Yet to accomplish anything at all worth
while in either requires:
/, Brains of ample quantity, high quality
and special adaptedness to the work to be
done.
2, Much experience and diligent training.
3. Wide and varied information, at once
full and exact.
4, Undaunted and untiriDg industry in in
vestigation and in working out its results.
5, The logical faculty as nicely developed
as an exquisite ear for Music, and as quickly
and keenly shocked by discord.
6, An Independent, liberal impartial and
fearless Judgment.
I. A facility and versatility that are always
ready for any occasion and fully equal to its
demands
s. A patient spirit that can forbear with
ignorance and error and condemn talsehoOd
and dishonesty and VcnalitV with unWaVer-
ing cquanimity.
81 -
men, all things all acts and all opinions, yet
with convictions and principles as fixed as
the pole star.
Resdes these principal requirements for the
accomplished author and efficient editor
there are many others subsidiary to those
enumerated, very useful OF ornamental, if not
essential. Vanderbilt may found and back Il
journal: Depew may manage it; and eX-
President Cleveland or Harrison may edit it :
but if the editor, Oike St. Paul, we magnify
our otfce'') lack the qualities and qualica
tions indicated above the paper can never
attain high standing or achieve leading
position or maintain either Unbounded
capital, unrivaled capacity in social and bus
mess diplomacy aud the highest position
| all combined-cannot give that which thev
do not possess and create.
1t must he owned that rarely, if ever, do we
find the perfect or highest type of editor. in
deed, IN these days, he is not wanted or
sought for by the great daiiies of our chief
cities Even Greely and Bennett lived long
enough to discover that the great Journals
they created could do without them, and did
not need them except as tigure-hcaGs The
metropolitan daily is machine. Its editor
ial department comprises Il corps of writers of
| different capacities and aptitudes, and the So
called editor in chief may himself lack every
| qualification we have stated to be necessary
to an editor, so he has secured them in or
ganizing his staff of actual writer's. He, in
deed, is often mere chun p as a writer his
merit consisting Of his ability to select organ
ize and direct
Hence 1t is the country weekly, more
frequently than the great city daily. that
evolves the great or able editor-the man of
all work and generally utility, with small
pay, only the big dailes being able to main
tain the corps system.