Arizona republican., 1899-05-25
DAILY HISTORY
 OF THE WORLD

While history may not have pre- served anywhere the name of the man
 who first wrCte the definition of a
 daily paper-"The history Of the world fer a day''-to him must be giv-
 en the credit of having driven a nail in a sure place and of having summed up the truth in the fewest words. The statement may be qualified by saying that no single issue of any daily paper
 tells the whole story of the worlG, but
 taking the daily papers Of the whole
 world together it may be said that Q collection of them of the same date gives every important event, and thousands of unimportant events that had happened in the world for the twenty-four hours preceding. No ether form of history could be so com plete.''
 ''The history of the world for day. was never told until the invention of the modern daily newspaper. In the earliest time the history of the worl1 was preserved in mems memories and later committed to marble and brass, both of which pass away. After this the recent events were committed to roll and scroll, to parchment and
 papyri, and to tardy chronicles and printed books. Hence the story was an old one by the time it could be told. A thing must happen and then months and years must elapse before the rec ord of it could be published. But with the daily newspaper came the immedi- ate and contempOraneous historian.
 To illustrate, take the story of a murder and what follows. In the old time the first full story cf the crime might be the last dying speech and confession of the murderer, printed months after the commission of the deed. Now the reporter is at his desk by the time the criminal has reached the jail, and the crime and everything relating to it appears in the morning or evening newspaper. The record, it should be understood, will never wa& less. The story will grow larger. It will include the trial of the case, the arguments of counsel, the testimony of the witnesses, the findings of the jury and the sentence of the court, if one is pronounced. There will never be an- other such history of the affair. After the trial there may be an account of the case in pamphlet form. principally made up from the newspaper, CT, years after, brief account in some book; but never again will there be so full, so complete and well written an account of the crime and the effcrt to bring the criminal to justice as that written by the newspaper. Often has it happened that the newspaper record has been the only one made, and in a vast ma jority Of instances it is the best one
 It is, of course, said that newspapers are transitory, ephemeral, made for a day, partisan, sensational. But, ad- hitting all this, the newspaper must, from its own nature and circum- tell the true story, that A did on certain day, at an hour given, kill B. This central fact may be surround ed by a great deal of comment, discus sion, conjecture and space writing, but it is in the newspaper that twenty years after you will find the facts set down, and perhaps in no other place in the world. You will find it if you lock twenty years after just as you will find the time table of the railroad that ran into that town in that day find it there and nowhere else.
 A yearly file of a newspaper of and circulation, of course, is such history of the world as exists nowhere else. A book about a years work in the world must be delayed un-