The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-21

Stuns by some new fabrication in print,
we come to write or speak about an "un-
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 indis-
tinctness of utterance we are reported as
saying just the opposite of what I'VE DID
say, and there is a small riot of semicol-
ons and hyphens and commas and we
come 10 write or talk about the 'blunder-
ing printing press" or we take up a news
paper fun of social scandal and Of cases
Of divorce. and we write or talk about
filthy, scurrilous printing-press. D." But
this morning, l ask you to consider the
immeasurable and everlasting blessing of
a good newspaper.
l find no difficulty in accounting for the
worlds advance. What has made the
change? Books" you say No, sir Tie
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 a year
for each individual! Whence, then, this
Intelligence this capacity TO talk about
all themes, secular and religious; this ac-
power to appreciate the beautiful end
grand? Next to the Bible the newspa-
per, swift-winged and everywhere present.
flying over the fence, showed under the
door, tossed into the contingencies, laid
on the workbench, hawked through tie
cars! All read it,; white and black Ger
man, lrishman, Swiss, Spaniard, Ameri-
can, old and young, good and bad sick ard
well before breakfast and after tea, Mon
Co min Il
week day. l now declare that 1 consider
the newspaper to be the grand agency by
which the gospel is to be preached, igno-
rance cast out, oppression dethroned,
crime eXtirpated, the world raised heaven
rejoiced, and God glorified In the clank-
ing of the printing-press, as the sheets
fly out ! hear the voice of the Lord AL
mighty proclaiming to all the dead ma
lions of the earth, Lazarus come forthH
and TO the retreating surges of darkness:
Let there be light! In many of our city
newspapers, processing no more than Sec
ular Information, there have appeared
during the past thirty years some of the
grandest appeals in behalf of religion and
some of the most effective interpretations
of Gods government among the nations
There are only two kinds of newspapers
the one good, very good, the other bad
very bad. 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 vir-
tue, the foe of crime the delectation of
elevated taste, the mightiest agency on
earth for making the world better The
other paper is a brigand among moral
forces; it is a beslimer 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 intelligence and mercy, the other
a hend of darkness. Between this Arch
angel 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 thunder
down the wrong are now numbered The
great Armageddon of the nations is not to
be fought with swords, but with steel
pens; not with bullets, but with type.
not with cannon but with lightning per
fecting presses; and the Sumters, and the
Moultries, and the Pulaskis, and the Glib
raltars of that conflict will be the edi-
| torial and reportorial rooms of our great
| newspaper establishment Men of the
| press, God has put a more stupendous
responsibility upon you than upon any
| other class or persons What long strides
your profession mas 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
| ascrDed to the work of the devil: and
books We're printed on strips of bamboo:
and Rev. Jesse Glover originated the first
| American printing press; and the Common
Council of New York, i'm solemn resolu-
tioh' offered two hundred dollars to any
printer who would come there and live:
ana when the Speaker of the House of
Parliament in England announced win
Indignation that the public prints had
| recognized some of their doings until in
| this day, when We have in this country
many thousands of skilled stenographers
| and newspapers sending out COPIES bv the
| billion. The press and the telegraph have
gone down into the same great harvest
| field TO reap, and the telegraph saws 10
the newspaper: I'm rake, while YOU
bind and the iron teeth of the telegraph
| are set down at one end of the harvest
! neld and drawn clean across and the
| newspaper gathers up the sheaves. setting
down one sheaf on the breakfast table i'm
| the shape of a morning newspaper, and
| putting down another sheaf on the tea Ia
pie IN the shape of an evening newspaper;
and that man who neither reads nor
takes a newspaper would be curiosity.
| What vast progress since the DAYS when
Cardinal Wosey 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 newspaper
profession IS the fact that they are com
PEELED 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 ihat
| want to be puffed the revengcs that want
! TO be wreakcd, all the mistakes that want
| to be corrected, all the dull speakers who
want to be thought eloquent, all the mean
| ness that wants TO get its wares noticed
| gratis in the editorial columns in order 20
| save the tax Of the advertising column
| oil the men who want to be set right who
| never were right, oil the crack Drained
philosophers, with story as long as Their
| hair and as gloomy as their fnger-nails
| all the iunerant bores who come to stay
| five minutes and stop an hour. From the
editorial and reportorial rooms all the fol-
lies and shams of the world are seen day
by day, and the temptation is to believe
neither in God, man, nor woman. 1t is no
! surprise to me that in your profession
there are some sceptical men / only won