Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1898-02-26
ACCOMAU G. IT. VA SATURDAY FEBRUARY 26 1885,

QOm Oh Cne press WAS 1OuBHI III tuo
courtrooms of England and the United
States before this century began, when
Hamilton made his great speech in be-
half of the freedom of J. Peter zenger's
Gazette in America, and when Erskine
made his great speech in behalf of the
freedom to publish Pnine's "Rights of
Man" in England. Those were the Mar
athon and the Thermopyle where the
battle was fought which decided the
freeom of the press in England and
America, and all the powers of earth
and hell will never again be able to put
upon the printing press the handouts
and the hopples of literary and political
despotism.
It is remarkable that Thomas JefPer-
son, who wrote the Declaration of indie
pendence. also wrote these words, eff
had to choose between government
without newspapers and newspapers
without q government, would prefer
the latter +" Stung by some new fabri-
cation in print, we come to write or
speak about on "unbridled printing
press. Our new book ground up in un-
just criticism, we come to write OF
speak about the unfair printing press. y
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 Il news
paper full Of social scandal and of cases
of divorce, and we write or talk about
"filthy, scurrilous printing press p"
But this morning I ask you to consider
the unreasonable and everlasting bless
ing of good newspaper.
find no difficulty in accounting for
the world advance What has made
the change? Books, you say. No, sir.
The vast majority of citizens do not
read books. Take this audience or any
other promiscuous assemblage, and how
many histories have they read? How
many treatises on constitutional law or
political economy or works of science?
How many elaborate poems or books OF
travel? Not many. In the United States
the people would not average one such
book year for each individual. Whence
then this intelligence, this capacity to
talk about all themes, secular and reli-
gious; this acquaintance with science
and art, this power to appreciate the
beautiful and grand? Next to the Bible,
the newspaper, swift winged and every
where present, flying over the fence,
showed under the door, tossed into the
counting house, laid Oh the work bench,
hawked through the cars. All read it
white and black, German, Irishman,
Swiss, Spaniard, American, old and
young, good and bad, sick and well, be-
fore breakfast and after tea, Monday
morning, Saturday night, Sunday and
weekday. now declare that consider
the newspaper to be the grand agency
by which the gospel is to be preached,
ignorance cast out, oppression dethron-
ed, crime extirpated, the world raised,
heaven rejoiced and God glorifed. In
the clanlsing of the printing press, as
the sheets fly out, hear the voice Of
the Lord Almighty proclaiming to all
the dead nations of the earth, Lazarus,
come forth ~ and to the retreating
surges of darkness, Let there be light |"
In many of our city newspapers, pro-
Tossing no more than secular informa-
ton, there have appeared during the
past 80 years some of the grandest ap-
peals in behalf of religion and some of
the most effective interpretations of
Gods government among the nations.
Good and Bad Newspapers.
There are only two kinds Of newspa-
pers-the cne 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 it is very bad. The
one paper is the embodiment of news,
the ally of virtue, the foe of crime, the
delectation of elevated taste, the might
est agency on earth for making the
world better. The other paper is a brig
and among moral forces, it is a be-
sinner of reputation, it is the right
arm of death and hell, it is the mightiest
agency in the universe for making the
world worse and battling against the
cause of God-the one an angel Of in
telligence and mercy, the other fiend
of darkness Between this archangel
and this fury is to be fought the great
battle which is to decide the fate of the
world. If you have any doubt as to
which is to be victor, ask the prophecies,
ask God. The chief batteries with which
he would vindicate the right and thun-
der down the wrong are now unlimber-
3D. The great Armageddon of the ma
tions is not to be fought with swords,
but with steel pens; not with bullets,
but with type; not with cannon, but
with lightning perfecting presses, and
the Sumters and the Moultries and the
Pulaskis and the Gibraltars of that con-
6ict will be the editorial and reportorial
rooms OF our great newspaper establish
ments. Men of the press, God has put a
more stupendous responsibility upon
you than upon any other class of per-
sons. What long strides your profession
has made in influence and power 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 Oh strips of bamboo, and Rev.
Jesse Glover originated the first Ameri-
can printing press, and the common
council of New York i'll solemn resolu-
ton offered 5000 to any printer who
would come there and live, and wien
the speaker of the house of parliament
in England announced with indignation
that the public prints had recognized
come of their doings, until in this day,
when we have in this country many
thousands of skilled stenographers and
newspapers sending out copies by the
billion. The press and the telegraph
have gone down into the same great
n IL, ko1o ~,