Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1897-08-07
what Ii Takes to Run a paper.

NSubt1 ~ WAo4A NAS AotlONiu& aFliCle
applies. and they are so callous that
the publication of it will not offend
them,l
A few days since the editor Of the
News published at St Johns, Kansas.
remarked that 1T takes money to run
a newspaper whereupou one of his
sunfower contemporaries arose in his
place and delivered himself OF the
following, which, while intended to be
entirely humorous, contains some
solid chunks of truth, as those who
are at all familiar with the subject will
promptly attest;
What an exaggeration, what a
whcpperl 1t has been disapproved a
thousand times. 1t is clean case Of
air fancy. 1t doesn't take money to
run newspaper. It cau'be run with
out money. 1t is not business ven
ture. 1t is charitable instution, a
begging concern, highway robber.
A newspaper is the child of the air,
creature of the dream. 1t can go on
and on, when any other firm would be
in the hands of a receiver and wound
up with cobwebs in the windows.
1t takes wind to run newspaper.
1t takes a scintillation, acrobatic
imagination and half dozen white
shirts and railroad passes to run a
newspaper. But money--heavens to
Betsy and six hands round, who ever
needed money in running a news
paper? Kind words are the medium
of exchange that do business for the
editor--kind words and church social
tickets. When you see an editor with
money, watch him He'll be paying
his bills and disgracing his profession.
Never give money to an editor. Make
him trade it out. He likes to swap.
No, never pay the editor a cent, If
you can possibly avoid it. When an
important question arises in your
county or the national campaign is
on, he will come to the front and
work for his party, or uphold what
he takes to be the right side of the
perplexiug question. Then when
the matter of election has been settled,
don't pay any money or attention
to the editor-he does not need it.
Just form stock company and start
a paper of your own. You can get
lots of fun out of it.
Then when you die after having
stood around years and sneered at the
editor and his little Jim Crow paper,
be sure and have your wife send in
for extra copies by one of your weep.
ing children, and when she reads the
generous and touching notice about
you, forwarn her to neglect to send S
cents to the editor. 1t would over
whelm him. Money is coIrupting
thing. The editor knows it, and what
he wants is your heartfelt thanks
Then he can thank the printers and
they can thank their grocers. Send
your job work to the job office and
then come and ask for half rates for
the church notices. Get your lodge
letterheads and stationery printed out
of town and flood the editor with beau
tiful thoughts in resolutions of respect
and cards of thanks. They make such
spicy reading, and when you pick it
up filled with these glowing and vivid
mortuary articles, you are SO proud of
your little local paper
But money-scorn the filthy, the
filthy thing. Don't let the pure, in
nocent editor know anything about it.
Keep that for sordid trades people who
charge for their wages. The editor
gives his bounty away. The Lord
loves cheerful giver He'll take
care of the editor. He has charter
from the state to act as door mat for
the community. He will get the pa
per out somehow; and stand up for
the town and whoop it up for you
when you run for office, and lie about
your pigeon-toed daughters tackey
wedding, and blow about your big
footed sons when they get job of 50
week and weep over your shriveled
soul when it is released from your
grasping body, and smile at your gid.
DIV wife's second marriage. Don't
worry about the editor, he'll get on.
the Lord knows how--some how
Downers Grove (Ill.) Reporter.