Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-04-21
THE COUNTRY PAPER
CHAMP CLARk'S ENTHUSIASTIC TIRE.
UTE TO THE RURAL PRESS.

The Editor Is, Says The Congressman, "the
Pack Horse of Every Community" sthe
Worst U~nderpaid Laborer In the Vine
yard"
In speaking against the Loud postal
| bill in the house of representatives the
other day Congressman Champ Clark Of
Missouri made the following character
istic plea for the country editor:
"The great objection to this bill, he
said, lis that it is detrimental to news
papers and diminishes the diffusion Of
information. Having once been a coun-
try editor myself, I entertain a most
kindly feeling for my old confreres. I
am willing to make affidavit that the II
months l spent editing a rural journal
were the most beneficial of my life to
myself and perhaps to others. I am proud
to have belonged to the editorial guild.
I am unalterably opposed to anything
that will injure the country editor, cur
tail his profits, ciroumscribe his useful
ness or place an additional thorn in his
pathway. The rural editor-God bless
him-is the most persistent of teachers.
Like charity as described by St. Paul
in the thirteenth chapter of I Co.
rinthians, he 'suffereth long and is
kind; he envieth not himself, is. not
pulled up; doth not behave himself un.
seemly; seeketh not his own; is not
easily provoked, thinketh no evil re-
joiceth not in ~iniquity, but rejoiceth in
truth; beareth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things
"He is the pack horse of every COM.
munity, the promoter Of every laudable
enterprise, the worst underpaid laborer
in the vineyard. Counting his space as
his capital, he gives more to charity,
his means considered, than any other
member of society. He is a power in
politics, a pillar Of the church, a leader
in the crusade for better morals. He is
prominently the friend of humanity.
Line upon line, paragraph upon para
graph, day by day, he is embalming in
cold type the facts from which the
Herodotus, Tacitus, Sismondi or Ma
caulay Of the future will write the his
tory OF our times. He fully chronicles
our advent into the world, briefly notes
our uprisings and our downsittings and
sorrowfully records our exit.
Gas a creator of beauty he double dis
counts Nine. Ayres, who processes to
increase feminine pulchritude only in
particular instances, while the country
editor, exercising plenary power, beau
titles impartially all women whose
names appear in his columns. By q
touch OF his magician's wand he con-
verts paste into diamonds glistening
upon beauty's neck, and with a skill of
which ancient and ambitious alchemists
only dreamed, and with a politeness
which Chesterfield might have envied,
he transmutes brass trinkets into golden
jewels when worn by members of a
subscribers family. He is the greatest
and most ingenious of manufacturers,
for while others manufacture perishable
stuffs he is engaged in manufacturing
immortal statesmen out of raw-some-
times very raw-materials, an industry
which even the Dingley tariff cannot
protect. He is
&c our virtues very kind
And to our faults a little blind.
"We are all more or less-generally
more-his handiwork, and the creature
should not be ungrateful to his creator.
Without his generous and enthusiastic
labors most Of us would never have !
been here, and when he tires Of us most
of us will return to private life amid
rural scenes propitious for secret medi-
tation and silent prayer. Working
night and day during the campaign,
when the election is over and the time
comes for the distribution of the loaves
and fishes-now vulgarly called pie
by some strange lapse Of memory he is
generally forgotten"
Mr.. Clark dropped into history for a
further illustration of his subject and
referred to Horace Greeley's letter to
William H. Seward in 1854.