Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-02-21
paper they would prefer to publish, 1

ing paper So long as there is an in
iquitous demand there will be an in
iquitous supply. I make no apology for
a debauched newspaper, but 1 am say
ing these things in order to divide the
responsibility between those who print
and those who read.
Another temptation of the newspaper
profession is the great allurement that
surrounds them. Every occupation and
profession has temptations peculiar to
itself, and the newspaper profession is
not an exception. The great demand,
as you know, is on the nervous force,
and the brain is raoked The laundering
political speoch must read we'll for the
sake of the party, and SO the reporter
or the editor has to make it read we'll,
although every sentence were a catastro-
phe to the English language. The re-
porter must hear all tlIat an inaudible
speaker who thinks it is vulgar to speak
out says, and it must be right the next
morning or the next night in the papers,
though the night before the whole audi
ence sat with it's hand behind it's ear in
vain trying to catch it. This man must
go through killing night work. He must
go into heated assemblages and into I'M
ventilated audience rooms that are
enough to take the life out of him. He
must visit cOurtrOOms which are almost
always disgusting with rum and tobac-
co. He must expose himself at the fire.
He must write in fetid alleyways.
Added to all that he must have hasty
mastication and irregular habits. To
bear up under this tremendous nervous
strain they are tempted to artificial
stimulus, and how many thousands
have gone down under their pressure
God only knows. They must have some
thing to counterfeit the wet they must
have something to keep out the chill
and after a scant nights sleep they
must have something to revive them for
the mornings work. This is what made
Horace Greeley such a stout temperance
man. I said to him, "Mr Greeley, why
are you more eloquent on the subject of
temperance than any other subject?'
He replied, 81 have seen so many of my
best friends in journalism go down I'M
der intemperance.
Oh, my dear brother of the newspaper
profession, what you cannot do without
artificial stimulus God does not want
you to do! There is no half way ground
for our literary people between teetotal-
ism and dissipation. Your professional
success, your domestic peace, your eter-
nal salvation, will depend upon your
theories in regard to artificial stimulus
have had SO many friends go down IN
der the temptation, their brilliancy
quenched, their homes blasted that 1
cry out this morning in the words of
another, "Look not upon the wine when
it is red, when it giveth its color in the
cup, when it moveth itself Alright, for
at the last it biteth like a serpent and
it stingeth like an adder
Who breaches to Reporters?
Another trial of this profession is the
fact no one seems to care for their souls
They feel bitterly about it, though they
laugh People sometimes laugh the loud
est when they feel the worst. They are
expected to gather up religious proceed
ings and to discuss religious doctrines
in the editorial columns, but who ex-
poets them to. be saved by the sermons
they stenograph or by the doctrines they
discuss in the editorial columns? The
world looks upon them as professional.
Who breaches to reporters and editors?
Some of them came from religious
homes, and when they left the parental
roof, whoever regarded or disregarded,
they came off with a fathers benedic
tion and mothers prayer. They never
think of those good old times but tears
come into their eyes, and they move
through these great cities homesick.
Oh, if they only knew what a helpful
thing it is for a man to put his weary
head down on the bosom of sympa-
thetic Christi He knows how nervous
and tired you are. He has heart large
enough to take nall your interests for
this world and the next. Oh, men of the
newspaper press, you sometimes get sick
of this world, it seems so hollow and
unsatisfying If there are any people in
all the earth that need God, you are the
men, and you shall have him, if only
this day you implore his mercy
A man was found at the foot of Canal
street, New York. AS they picked him
up from the water and brought him to
the morgue they saw by the contour of
his forehead that he had great mental
capacity. He had entered the newspaper
profession. He had gone down in health.
He took to artificial stimulus. He went
down further and further, until one
summer day, hot and hungry and sick
and in despair; he flung himself off the
dock. They found in his pocket re-
porter pad, a lead pencil, a photograph
of some one who had loved him long
ago. Death, as sometimes it will,
smoothed out all the wrinkles that had |
gathered prematurely on his brow, and
as he lay there his face was as fair as
when seven years before he left his
country home and they babe him good
by forever. The world looked through |
the window of the morgue and said,
"It's nothing but an outcast," but God /,
faid it was gigantic soul that persisted |