The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-02-23

| menG, would prefer the latter" Stung
by some new fabrication in print, we
come to write or speak about an sun
bridled printing press" Our new book
ground up in unjust criticism, we come
to write or speak about the unfair
printing press" Perhaps through our
own indistinctness of utterance we are
reported as saying just the opposite OF
what we did say, and there is small
riot OF semicolons and hyphens and
commas, and we come to write or talk
about the ''blundering printing press
or we take up a newspaper full of social
scandal and of cases of divorce, and
we write or talk about filthy, sour
rilous printing press" But this morn
ing ask you to consider the immeas-
ureable and everlasting blessing of a
good newspaper.
There are only two kinds of newspa-
pers-the one good, very good, the
other bad, very bad. A newspaper
may be started with an undecided
character, but after it has been going
on for years everybody finds out just
what it is, and it is very good or very
bad. The one paper is the embodiment
of news, the ally of virtue, the foe of
crime, the delectation of elevated taste,
the mightiest agency on earth for
making the world better. The other
paper is brigand among moral
forces; it is beslimer of reputa ton,
it is the right arm of death and hell; it
is the mightiest agency in the uni
verse for making the world worse
and battling against the cause of God.
Men of the press, God has put more
stupenduous responsibility upon you
than upon any other class of persons
What long strides your profession has
made since the day when Peter Shelter
invented cast metal type, and because
two books were found just alike they
were ascribed to the work of the devil;
and books were printed on strips Of
bamboo; and Rev. Jesse Glover origi-
mated the first American printing press;
and the common council of New York,
in solemn resolution, offered 5000 to any
printer who would come there and live;
and when the speaker of the house of
parliament in England announced
with indignation that the public prints
had recognized some of their doings,
until in this day we have in thiscoun-
try many thousands of skilled stenog-
raphers, and, newspapers sending out
copies by the billion. The press and
the telegraph have gone down in the
same great harvest to reap, and the
telegraph says to the newspaper: 'Pll
rake while you bind" and the iron
teeth of the telegraph are set down at
one end of heiharvest field and drawn
clear across, and the newspaper gath
ers up the sheaves, setting down one
sheaf on the breakfast table in the,
shape of morning newspaper, and
putting down another sheaf on the tea
table in the shape of an evening news
paper; and that man who neither reads
nor takes newspaper would be a Gu
riosity. What vast progress since the
days when Cardinal Wolsey declared
that either the printing press must go
down or the church of God must go
down, to this time, when the printing
press and the pulpit are in glorious
combination and alliance.
One of the great trials of this news
paper profession is the fact that thev
are compelled to see more of the shams
OF the world than any other profession.
Through every newspaper Office, day by
day, go the weakness of the world, the
vanities that want to be puffed, the
revenges that want to be wrecked, all
the mistakes that want to be corrected,
all the dull speakers who want to be
thought eloquent, all the meanness
that wants to get it's wares noticed
gratis in the editorial columns in or
der to save the tax of the advertising
column, all the men who want to be
set right who never were right, all the
crack-brain philosophers, with story
as long as their hair and as gloomy as
their finger-nails, all the itinerant
bores who come to stay five minutes
and stop an hour. From the editorial
and reportorial rooms all the follies
and shams of the world are seen day
by day, and the temptation is to be-
lieve neither in God, man nor woman.
1t is no surprise to me that in your
profession there are some sceptical
men: / only wonder that you believe
anything. Unless an editor or re-
porter has in his present or in his early
home model of earnest character,
or he throws himself upon the up
holding grace of God, he may make
temporal and eternal ship wreck. g..
Another great trial of the newspaper,
profession is the diseased appetite for
unhealthy intel igence.i You, blame the
newspaper press for giving such promi-.
nence to murders and scandals; Do You
suppose, that so many papers would
give prominence to these things If the |
people did not demand them? If 1 go
into the meat market of q foreign city,
and / find that the, butchers hang up
on the most conspicuous hooks meat
that is tainted, while the meat that is
fresh and savory is put away without
any special care, come to the conclu-
sion that the people of that city love
taintedmeat. You'know very well that
If the great mass of people in this
country got hold of newspaper, and
there are in it no runaway matches, no
broken-up families, no defamation of
men in high position, they pronounce
the paper insipid. They say. at is
shockingly dull tonight" 1 believe it
is one of the trials of the newspaper
press that the people Of this country