The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-03-31

as not-the religious and secular news
papers are the great educators of the
country.
But alas. through what struggle the
newspaper has come to its present de-
velopment. Just as soon as it began to
demonstrate its power. superstition
and tyranny shackled it. There is
nothing that despotism so much fears
and hates as the printing press. A
great writer in the south of Europe de-
clared that the king of Naples had
made it unsafe for him to write on any
subject save natural history. Austria
could not bear Kossuth's journalistic
pen pleading for the redemption of
Hungary. Napoleon L.. wanting to
keep his iron heel on the neck of ma
tions. said that the newspaper was the
regent of kings, and the only safe place
to keep an editor was in prison.
But the great battle for the free
dom of the press was fought in
the court rooms of England and
the United States before this century
began, when Hamilton made his great
speech in behalf 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 Paine's
Rights of Man in England. Those
were the Marathon and the Thermopy-
lac. where the battle was fought which
decided the freedom of the press in
England and America, and all the pow
ers of earth and hell will never again
be able to put upon the printing press
the handouts and the hopples of lit
erary and political despotism. 1t is
remarkable that Thomas jefferson,
who wrote the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, also wrote these words:
IF l had to choose between gov
ernment without newspapers, and
newspapers without a government.
l would prefer the latter" Stlng 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 indistinctness of utterance we are
reported as saying just the opposite of
what we did say, and there is small
riot of semicolons and hypens and
commas. aad we come to write or talk
about the ''blundering printing press. :"
or we take up a newspaper full of
social scandal and of cases of divorce
and we write or talk about a filthy.
scurrilous printing press But this
morning ask you to consider the i'm
measurable and everlasting blessing of
IA good newspaper.
find no difficulty in accounting for
the worlds 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 consti-
tutional law, or political economy, or
work of science? How many elaborate
poems or books Of travel? Not many
In the United States the people would
not average one such a book year for
each individual Whence. then, this
intelligence, this capacity to talk
about all themes. secular and
religious; this acquaintance with
science and art; this power to appre-
ciate the beautiful and grand? Next
to the Bible, the newspaper, swift
winged and everywhere present. flying
over the fence, showed under the door,
tossed into the counting-house. laid on
the work bench, hawked through the
cars! All read it-white and black
German, 1rishman, Swiss. Spaniard.
American, old and young, good and
bad. sick and we'll. before breakfas
and after tea, Monday morning, Satur-
day night, Sunday and week day. l
now declare that | consider the news
paper to be the grand agency by which
the Gospel is to be preached igno-
rance east out, oppression dethron-
ed. crime extirpated. the world raised,
Heaven rejoiced, and God glorified. In
the clanking 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: "Laza-
rus. come forth and to the retreating
surges of darkness, Let there be
light" In many of our city newspa,
pers. protesting no more than secular
information. there have appeared dur
ing the past 80 years some of the grand.
est appeals in behalf of religion, and
some of the most effective interpreta
tions of Gods government among the
nations.
There are only two kinds of newspa
pers-the one 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 i:
very bad. The one paper is the EN-
bodiment of news, the ally of virtue
the foe of crime, the delectation of ele
waited taste, the mightiest agency or
earth for making the world better. TIL.
other paper is a brigand among mora
forces; it is beslimer of reputation, i
is the right arm of death and hell. it il
the mightiest agency in the universe
for making the world worse and bat
tling against the cause of God. TIL,
one an angel of intelligence and mercy
the other fend of darl.
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