The age-herald., 1901-05-03
COL, MCCLURE ON
 TIE NEWSPAPER Brilliant Address by the PhiIa-
 deIphia Editor PROGRESS OF JOURNALISM We Have outgrown Age of Great Ed. itors and There Are No Tower
 ing Lords Today-Indi-
 viduality Passed.
PROGRESS OF JOURNALISM

Philadelphia, May 2.-(Special)-Colonel Mcclure delivered the following brilliant address on American journalism before the Clover Club tonight:
 MT. Chairman. Brethren and Guests of
 the Clover Club:
 "I cannot convey to you my profound appreciation of the honor conferred upon me by my brethren of the club and press and the distinguished guests who are with us this evening. Such tributes are not uncommon to men in the zenith of usefulness and power to give inspiration to personal homage, but when the tribute comes to one whose life work Is done 1t brings generous memories of the past rather than quickened expectations of the future. To be gratefully remembered is among the noblest and best achievements of human life when its chief labors have been performed, and thus with an over flowing heart thank you.
 T have ever conscientiouslly appreciaI- ed the exceptional responsibilities of the editorial direction of widely-read daily newspaper, and in retiring from such exacting duties l can freely declare to- night that, fully appreciating the errors which are, common inheritance to the best of human efforts, there are very few of my many earnest editorial struggles which I would efface from the history of journalism.
 "In no other calling are men so likely to err, because of the necessity for prompt criticism of public men and measures, and 1t has always been cause of sincere regret to me that the fidelity of Journalism to public interests is so im- perfectly appreciated. In all the other great professions there is ample time for the fullest consideration of every subject; but the editor is called upon to give ex- pression on the moment of information with hls sources of news embracing the circle of the world itself Journalism Is often criticised for recklessnesS in pub fishing news which the trained lightning and its host of contributors pour into the sanctum at the midnight hour, but there are few indeed outside of the profession who understand the care that is exercised to assure fidelity to the public, and the generous charity with which news Is halted at times in every well regulated, newspaper office, by which the guilty often escape just punishment to shield the innocent from needless sorrow.
 Great Editors.
 "We have outgrown the age of great editors in the sense in which they were accepted half a century ago, not because there are no longer great editors among us, but because they have so largely mul- tiplied as to efface individuality. The towering lords off the Journalistic forest are as great and grand today as ever in the past, but host of their fellows has grown up with them, and the resistless xI.- IL. nalism of today absolutely impersonal. This change has come because the rapidly widenig field of journalism has summoned a large proportion of the best intellects of the country into its service, and the editorial writer has ceased to be the newspaper
 '"rhe newspapers which fifty years ago had attained national fame hardly ex- ceeded a score in number, and the rela- tive importance of each was measured solely by the individual importance of its editor. The editor was the newspaper, and distinction in the journalism of that day depended wholly upon the distinction of the editor. The National Intelligencer was accepted by all as a model American newspaper, but I could today name sev- eral Philadelphia staff editors who, with their present exceptional ability and trained experience would have written leaders for the National Intelligencer as forceful in logic and as polished in dc- ton as those of Joseph Gales: and with their appreciation of journalistic progress any one of them would have made the great newspaper of the nation more at tractive and potential than it was made by the then Nestor of American journal ism.
 .'There was then only one flora ee Greeley. and the Tribune was widely read and greatly respected because of the in- cisive paragraphs and impressive leaders which came from his pen; but today there is hardly a leading newspaper office In the country that has not some one on it's staff who is as pungent in paragraphs and as forceful In leaders as was Greeley in the zenith of his power. The Louis vile Courier acquired greater national fame under George D. Prentice than any other journal In the country with the sin gle exception of the Tribune. His spark ling wit and keen inyective displayed in his brief, bristling paragraphs made his journal one of the high water landmarks in the Journalism of that day, but there Is Prentice in almost every great news paper office In the country today Indeed, there was not great editor of the olden time who has not his counterpart num-