The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1898-03-31
BENTON. LOUISIANA, THURSDAY, MARCH 3d. 1885,

right and thunder down the wrong are
now unlimbered. The great Armaged-
don of the nations is not to be fought
with swords, but with steel pens: not
with bullets, but with type; not with
common but with lightning perfecting
presses: and the Sumters, and the
Moultries, and the Pulaskis, and the
Gibraltars of that conflict will be the
editorial and the editorial rooms OF
our great newspaper establish
ments. Men of the press, Col
has put more stupendous re~
sponsibility upon you than upon any
other class of persons. What lonS
strides your profession has made in in.
huence and power since the day when
Peter Shelter invented cast metal type,
and because two books We're found just
alike they were ascribed to the work
of the devil; and books were printed
on strips of bamboo: and Rev. Jesse
Glover originated the first American
printing press: and the common coun-
Gil of New York. in solemn resolution,
offered $500 to any printer who would
come there and live; and when the
in England announced with indig-
nation that the public prints had
recognized some of their doings, until
in this day. when we have in this coun-
try many thousands of skilled stenOg-
raphers, and newspapers sending out
copies by the billion. The press and
the telegraph have gone down into tho
same great harvest field to reap. and
the telegraph says to the the news
paper: iii rake while you bind"
and the iron teeth of the telegraph
are set down at one end of the
harvest field and drawn clean
across, and the newspaper gathers up
the sheaves, setting down one sheaf on
the breakfast table in the shape of a
morning newspaper, and putting down
another sheaf on the tea table in the
shape of an evening newspaper: and
that man who neither reads nor takes
Il newspaper would be a curiosity.
What vast progress since the days
when Cardinal Wolsey 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 news.
paper profession is the fact that they
are compelled to see more of the shama
of the world than any other profession.
Through every newspaper Office, day
by day. go the weakness of the world,
the vanities that want to be puffed. the
revenges that want to be wrecked, all
the mistakes that want to be corrected,
all the dull speakers who want to be
thought eloquent. all the meanness
that wants to get it's wares noticed
gratis in the editorial columns in
order to save the tax of the:
advertising column. all the men who
want to be set right who never were
right, all the crack-brained philoso.
piers, with story as long as their hair
and as gloomy as their fnger-nails, all
the itinerant bOres who come to stay
five minutes and stop an hour. From
the editorial and reportorial rooms all
the follies 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 skepti-
cal men. / only wonder that you be-
lieve anything. Unless an editor or a
reporter has in his present or in his
early home model of earnest char
acter. or he throw himself upon the up
holding grace of God. he may make
temporal and eternal shipwreck..
Another great trial of the newspaper
profession is inadequate compensation.
Since the days of Hazlitt. and Sheri-
dan. and John Milton, and the wailings
of Grub street, London, literary toll,
with very few exceptions, has not been
properly requited. When Oliver Gold
smith received friend in his house, he
(the author) had to sit on the window,
because there was only one chair.
Linnaeus sold his splendid work fo..
ducat. De Foe, the author of SO many
volumes. died penniless. The learned
johnson dined behind screen
because his clothes were too
shabby to allow him to dine with
| the gentlemen who, on the other side
of the screen, We're applauding his
works And SO on down to the present
time literary toll is a great struggle
| for bread. The world seems to have a
grudge against a man who. as they say,
gets his living by his wits; and the day
| laborer says to the man of literary toll:
| You come down here and shove a
plane, and hammer, a shoe last, and
| break cobble stones, and earn an
honest living. as l do, instead of
sitting there in idleness and scrib-
bling But there are no harder
worked men in all the earth than the
newspaper men of this country. 1t
is not matter of hard times: it is char
acteristic at all times. Men have I,
better appreciation for that which ap-
peals to the brain. They have no idea
of the immense financial and intel
lectual exhaustion of the newspaper
press. Oh, men of the press, it will be
a great help to you if, when you get
home late at night. tagged out and
nervous with your work, you would
just kneel down and commend your
case to God. who has watched all the
| fatigue of the day and the night. and