Durango semi-weekly herald., 1901-12-05
entertain IL.

| entertain IT,
| From Horace Greeley to the editor
of the Podunk Cyclone the lesson is
| the same-that no editor or RESPONSE
Bile owner of newspaper who honest
| ly does his duty by his readers can
ever acquire or hope to acquire polit-
ical preferment through the power or
influence of his newspaper.
| And the reason is most plain. The
| honest newspaper man is compelled
| to expose too many frauds, to uncover
| too many pretenders, to circumvent
too many public jobs. to thwart too
| many personal ambitions to ever be
popular with the politicians, and
while they all like to have his help
in campaign times they hurl anath-
emas bountifully upon his head the
balance of the year.
Poor Greeley was a man of too
much conviction and of too vigorous
a manner of expressing his hatred of
the shams to be very popular with
either the politicians or the people of
his time.
What elective office ever fell to the
lot of Watterson, or Goodwin, or
Scott of the Oregonian, or Medill, or
Dana, or Whitelaw Reid?
Yet no office holder In our history
ever did more for the real good of
the people than any of these men has
done.
Honest journalism is tomb for all
political ambitions.
Neither can Newspaper thrive un-
der the ownership of private interests
or as a personal organ.
The trail is strewn with wrecks of
that kind at home and abroad.
When the Denver Times passed in
to the ownership of certain corporate
and private interests in Denver 1t was
the best paying newspaper property
in Colorado, Not one year since that
time has it been operated at profit
until recently when it has passed from
their control.
During the brief period when the
New York Sun and the Chicago Inter
Ocean We're dominated by the private
interests of capitalists in those cities
they both speedily went from money
making papers to great money-losine
papers.
In these enlightened days the pub
lie cannot be fooled as to the motives
and the purposes of newspaper.
and they soon learn whether 1t stands
for the hest interests of the people
or simply for the best interests of
its owners
After all. the newspaper business is
not vastly different from any other
business and other things being
equal. that newspaper will succeed
best that is owned by the persons
who operate it and that is operated
as newspaper proposition and not as
a promoter or advocate of private
business interests or individual am
bitions.
Perry Heath is too much of vet
eral both as a newspaper man and as
politician to purchase the Salt Lake
Tribune for the purpose of going to
the senate or of even attempting to
go to the senate from Utah, for 1t Is
nuite certain that II he wanted to go
to the senate the ownership of news
paper would be the last OF his acqui-
sitions.
II Dt tIdII1tu tDdt InutH VI
this argument is upset by the sue
cess of Senator Patterson in this
state, but it is not so.
The fact is that Paterson succeed
ed in spite of his newspaper and not
through its aid.
1t was great handicap to hir
and came near beating him at the
finish.
Then, too, Patterson had no seri-
Gus opposition. If Thomas had nev-
er been governor, the history of the
last senatorial fight would probably
have been entirely different.
The case of Patterson Is the ex-
ception that emphasizes the rule and
the truth remains that journalism is
the tomb Of political aspiration.
Colorado Springs Gazette.