The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-02-02
JOURNAL OF THE PRESENT,
AND THE PASSING OF ITS ERsT-
WHILE INDIVIDUALITY.

the Dictator-A Vehicle of the
Worlds, Movement, "a Factor OF
Its Progress, n Chronicler of Its
News - The OId-Timc Country
Weekly.
The recent determination OF the Ball
timore Sun to Issue a Sunday edition
was doubtless inspired by the oonvic-
ton that the public wants the news
every day in the year. Its thousands
of patrons have been for many years
content with what the Abells, father
and son, did for them; but they are
willing to trust the conservatism and
sound judgment of the paper to do
even better. If possible.
The managing editor. or the editor
in-chief. of a reputable daily journal
of the present time exerts great in
fluence on public sentiment, and goes
far towards shaping public opinion;
but he is not the journalistic dictator
Of half century back. He does not
write ex-cathedra, as did Horace Gree
ley. of the New York Tribune. Sam
Bolles of the Springfield Republican.
Thurlow Weed, of the Albany Argus
and Seaton Gales. of the Washington
National Intelligencer. This is not be-
cause he is less worthy to be a leader
than his predecessors, or because his
readers are more intelligent than those
of fifty years ago. But the latter had
fewer opportunities of exercising that
intelligence, fewer facilities for ac-
curing information of current events
and were perforce dependent on the
family paper for all they learned or
heard of the outside world. 1t is not
surprising, then, that what Mr.. Greeley
or Mr.. Weed thought or wrote meant
much to his readers.
Recently there has been more or less
comment on the passing of the news
papers individuality; and this is ex-
plainable when one compares the COM
pick structure of to-days great papers
with. say. the New York Tribune in it's
prime. Then the second or editorial
page was the paper. Thence
hersites hurled the envenomed darts
of his sarcasm; there Boanerges thun-
dered. The editor like Napoleon, sat
on his throne. a sceptred hermit,
wrapped in the solitude of his own
originality" The news was compiled
carefully and succinctly, what there
was of it; but as for the local" as it
is called that went in as wedgewood,
to make up the page. Indeed, in those
days the field of the local reporter was
very limited. He was not expected to
publish the bill of fare every time
friends hobnobbed around the mahog-
any to crown every marriage with
smilax and orange flowers, or to fol-
low every death to the grave with
sable draped catafalque. In one cor
ner of the paper were two black-letter
heads, Married" and "Died"-and that
was all.
1t is not strange, then. that. al
though not one in thousand readers
ever saw the white-haired choleric
philosopher of the New York Tribune.
the brilliant Dana of the Sun. or the
scholarly Manton Marble OF the World,
| they knew the "cut OF the jib," and
could unerringly tell whether or not
| that arrow came out of Erskine's
| CULVER"
Now a great daily paper is an ag-
| gregation of complicated but perfect
| ly moving machinery. From the sane
tum of the chief ramify the branches
Of the whole establishment-the depart
| ments of the night editor the telegraph
| editor the news editor the city edi-
| tor; and, dependent on all these, are
the subdivisions of the reportorial
staff. Each does his part in sending
| out to the world the varied sheet with
the first blush of dawn, after the pal
| Tor of a night of ceaseless toll; each
puts his impress on this page of the
| worlds doings, and II Is kaleidoscope
| rather than idividual.
One of the first men to devote am
| pie resources and no mean abilities to
| the publication of a newspaper; pure
I and simple, was the elder James Cor
| don Bennett, and it is related that he
| once utilized his own sensational ac-
| count of street fight in
which he was engaged, TO increase the
sale of the New York Herald. The pa
per was always on the jump for some
| thing that had happened; in this case
| something had happened to the edi-
tor-that was the long and short OF It.
| This policy has descended from father
to son, and is pursued by the younger
Bennett in the management of his
great metropolitan daily.
Years ago / was the regular CORE
spondent of the New York Herald for
the Cape Fear section of North Caro-
lima, residing at Fayetteville. One
Sunday morning, while on my way to
church, a messenger boy met me with
a telegram from the Herald, directing
me to wire the story of a disastrous
fire then sweeping over a great turpen-
tine district. destroying pines distil-
leries, etc. II was not ten miles away,
though in an out-of-the- corner;
but somehow the great New York office
had caught on to II before even the
neighborhooG woke up to IL.
One very near to the inside workings
OF the establishment has declared to
me that those have a very mistaken
idea, who suppose that. because Ben
nett spends most of his time In Europe,
he is but a figurehead on the Herald;
that, on the contrary, he dictates It's
policy, and knows, from day to day.
what II is going to say, and how II is
going to look.
The Herald was also perhaps the
pioneer of the huge Sunday edition.
and / well remember, when / was In
New York, twenty-eight years ago. the
public establishment at the issue Of
the sextuple, octuple and nonuple edi-
tions-when 1t reached its decuple is
sue II was regarded as having attained
the ne plus ultra OF journalism. There
were few illustrations at that time,
and the chromatic press had not come
into general use.
What a pleasant, unpretentious sheet
Bohemia was the office of the old
time country weekly--with its Wash
ington hand press, standing galley full
of dusty wood cuts. and the office
towel, so stiff with dirt and I've that IL
generally leaned against the chimney
piece. The dramatis personae of this
establishment were the foreman,
sallow-faced fellow, who wore a blue
homespun apron, could mend any part
OF the press with his jack-knife. and
who picked up twelve inches OF solid