The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-25
JOURNALISM AS 4 PROFESSION.

n
Mr.. Truman A De weese, a member of
the editorial staff of the Chicago Times
Herald, has an article in the December Fo-
rum on journalism end its rewards and OPP
portunities. The m,..l who is so well salts
fed with his own profession, it's work and
its emoluments that he desires his son to
enter it is the exception rather than the
rule in this country. The drawbacks in
cidental to his own calling are so clear
to him that they are apt to seem more
serious than the hindrances in other profess
sions, and though he may have a real en-
thusiasm for his work and have made a
success of it, he is disposed to wish his boy
to follow different career. Perhaps this
is more true of newspaper men than any
others. 1t is seldom that one of them wishes
his son to enter his profession, and nothing
is more common than to hear such men adj
wise boys generally to keep out of it. He
will at the same time acknowledge that he
would not himself be happy in any other
business, and that it has q perennial fas-
cinaticn The gpeat objection is the loss of
personal identity it involves and the small
pecuniary rewards. Journalism is classed as
a profession, but, unlike the professions of
law and medicine, its income is fixed. The
newspaper man receives a salary, usually
not large, while the lawyer or doctor may
have fees which aggregate as much in a
year as comes to him in five. Certainly
from a financial point of view the news
paper writer is at disadvantage. Never
theless, there are certain benefits and adj
vantages attaching to his occupation that,
in the eyes of Mr.. De Weese at least, offset
the objections. He points out that if jour
nalism is not of itself the best thing it acts
as a stepping-stone to a more lucrative
business.-that Of publishing. He does not
see why success as writer need unfit
man for such acquaintance with the bust
ness department as will enable him to COM
bine his knowledge in the work of publish
ing or as an advertising manager. To the
ambitious young man who desires to ''enter
Journalism in order to mold public opin-
ion' and accomplish great literary feats this
prospect of graduating into the advertising
or publishing departments is not likely to
be alluring, but the suggestion is not with
out practical sense, nevertheless.
Mr.. De Weese also thinks newspaper men
are better fitted by education and experience
for political service than any class of men,
and that they should enter politics. In just
what particular politics is more desirable
as calling than the work they abandon for
it he does not say. Certainly, except in the
highest offices, it is hardly more lucrative.
Nevertheless his argument is good as far as
it goes. He says:
There is no reason why politics or legisla-
ton should be regarded as the exclusive do
reasons why the business of lawmaking
should not be entirely controlled by those
who make money out Of the practice Of law.
If public office disqualifies a journalist for
impartial and fair-minded discussion of pub
lie measures, then the lawyer who is elected
to Congress is disqualified from practice in
any court. There is no reason why jour
nalist should expendi the energies of a life
time in helping men to secure pubic once
perience, education and training, for the
public service than most politicians. The
proverbial ingratitUde of politicians should
admonish newspaper writer's that their sur
est hope of reward for party service is in &C
tive and aggressive participation in the con-
tests for those places in the federal service
that are usually claimed by the incompetentS
who have no special fitness FOR them, and
who have no claim upon the party. outside
that which is established by corrupt manip-
uation of caucuses and conventions. and
which, to the disgrace of modern politics, Is
too often recognized
But the writer does not regard his profess
sion exclusively as a stepping stone to some
thing else He sees attractions in 1t of a
permanent sort, and it is refreshing as a
contrast to much that is often said against
newspaper work as an occupation, to hear
defense of it. He would do away with one
drawback by having every writer's produc
lions signed-a condition that for obvious
reasons will never come about. and that he.
as a newspaper man, should realize. Every
paper has a personality of its own, and the
unsigned article carries more weight than
the signature of one man because it's per-
sonality is stronger. The publisher would
be foolish, indeed, who would use signed
editorial articles.
His summing up of the journalistic situa
ton covers the case admirably. "There is
more money" he says, "in the manufac-
ture of chewing gum than there is in the
profession Of journalism. There is also
more money in the manufacture of pills
than in the practice of medicine; but the
great discoveries in surgery and therapeutics
were not made by the jobbers in pills. We
must survey the opportunities and rewards
of Journalism from a higher point of view
than the weekly pay roll. In the scope of
its activities; in the expanse of its field of
political attainment; in the richness of these
compensations that come from realization
Of the power to eXalt virtue, to uncover
hypocrisy, to expose fraud, to redress
wrong, to promote justice, to encourage high
thinking, and to touch humanity in all it's
impulses, aspirations and achievements the
profession of journalism is incompatible
among the vocations of men,"
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND LAW.
The Christian science "healer" who was in
attendance on the late Harold Frederic, and