Gilpin observer., 1900-08-02

tric light plant, n new school building,
| better streets. or the removal of some
rascal from office-hammer away at 1t
| till the opposition yields. You will have
done your community good and help
ed yourself by proving your power and
your purposes. Too many papers are
inane-they lack virility.
| Put your own personality well to the
front. l do not mean that you shall
be egotistical that would defeat you.
But If you are strong in one thing, use
that. 1t may be the public schools, it
may be municipal reform. Even If you
are modest wit or paragrapher, or
even n jingler, do much of that you
can do best.
In addition to this local need, make
each year Il stronger contention for
some wider need. Colorado is full of
them. Water storage is IL subject of
vast Importance just now. Colorado
may be come far more famous in agri-
culture than in mining. She wastes Il
hundredfold more water than she uses.
Help us mt the Agricultural College
to solve this problem.
Just now. of prime importance is the
arousing of II deeper pride. Make
your readers love Colorado as you once
loved Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois or
New York. Put the Centennial flag
above every state banner in the Union.
| 1t is n great state, soon to be third in
| the Union. but we must work with a
| strenuous unity.
Our state institutions must not suf-
fer for lack of Il few thousands of dol
lars. Our criminal, feeble and poor are
not treated in an up-to-date manner in
this up-to-date state.
| Our great state university, presided
over by as great an educational giant
as America affords. an institution
ranking fifth among the state univer-
| stiles of our land must not be allowed
to beg like IA pauper mt the states back
door for Il crust. These are significant
themes to which the weekly press can
give the solving treatment as no other
force in the state can DO
You make and unmakc legislators
and judges. At least you CAN make
them. l will not accuse you of so
henious n crime as that of having made
some of them.
Some of you can do more for the
homes of your own town than you are
doing. BY this you will set currents
of life. conviction and purpose going.
TO end-perchance not ut all. You will
tie the very children to you and your
enterprise. 1t will be like holding bank
| uDle pdppT.
An editor who hopes for long life
will meet Il reliable constituency with
reliability. He will see to it that his
reporters understand that one fake in
terview ends the engagement 1t is
shame that the published uttcrances
of great men in the daily press must
4 always be held in doubt until sufficient
time has gone by for denial In no
other way have the great journals so
lessened their influence.
Then. again, establish reliability by
editorials that ring like steel upon
steel. Short. pungcnt. nal-htting edi-
torials, with an occasional rail-splitter
when the maui of II great purpose
drives the wedge of fact into some
tough proposition. Editorials should
be personal in their source. If you
speak for your party. your town or
some local issue. let 1t be evident that
1t is you who are speaking. If more
than one write editorials, let them be
| signed.
wish | could make you feel how
much we of the other professions be-
lieve the power of the press to he I'M
| equaled. 1t goes where neither the
church nor the school can go. More
over, it Is the most powerful corrective
and ally of both church and school
Like air, like sunlight. like II voice, il
creeps everywhere: like the prolonged
note of n violin. it strikes the keynote
of huge. ancient structures until they
fall by the tremor of their own vibr;l-
ton.
If you name any good things in the
world | will show you that the press is
its common carrier to take il to the
people. l think not only of the great
dailies, they are the captains: but
| think also of the hosts, the weekly
| journals | think not alone of the
| famous men In the watchtowers. sig
mailing and guiding, but also of the
busy, overworked. obscure. faithful
hordes who work on the levels below; 4
sub editors. reporters, compositors.
down to the newsboy. who cuts the
morning air with his sibilant or nasal
heralding of the great worlds doings
and misdoings. y great company Il is.
with greater temptation to he cowardly
and time serving than has any other
body of men on earth, but who. In my
judgment. are as n whole the least
cowardly and the least truculcni.
You can make and end wars. You
can elect and regulate rulers Scnates.
congresses and cabinets listen for III"
ground swell from the cylinders of the
| printing room. Creeds grow grotesqtc
and unlovely under your electric light
| Spurious reforms dwindlc and sicken
into unmarked graves when you have
put the death mark upon them. Crime
| hides from your lynX-eycd scnrchers
and cuts its deeds In half. Good and
kindly enterprises sprout' and flourish
to n rich harvest under your fructlfy-
ing sunlight. | believe that God uses
| MI instruments to the worlds unfold
ment. None Is perfect. but the Holy
Spirit Is In them all. That mystical
spirit that made the worlds, that
| plpnms ypt In pypry stnrhpum and