The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-08-29
THE LUCKY COUNTRY EDITOR.

| portant factOr lie are shown. Ihe
editor of the Richmond DiSbatch ha:
this to say on this interesting sub
ject:
"What happy life the country
editor must lead A man of conse
quence in the community, influential
in politics, invited to all the weddings
and Christmas frolics, his larder filled
with spare-ribs, chitterlings and sau-
sages, his wood-pile giving evidence
of the large subscription list his paper
has, he prepares for the Christmas by
preaching a holiday sermon in his
editorial columns, and then announces
that he will take a weeks rest and
there will be no paper issued from his
office next week Here in Rich
mond we slaves of the press are glad
enough to get one day instead of a
week, and the majority have lean in
stead of plethoric larders and like
woodpiles.'
The editor of the Nashville Ameyi-
can takes somewhat different view
of the situation than the DISPATCH.
He writes
1t is evident that the editor of the
Dispatch was never country editor.
What seductive pictures of the beau
ties and delights, the richness and
sweetness of the country editors life
and experience Ignorant city editors
sometimes paint. The country edi-
tor knows they are not true. The
'mountain-like wood-pile' which the
DisPGtcA conjured up in its imagina-
ton usually consists of a quarter cord
of green gum. Millions of columns
of appeals to bring on that wood
have been printed in the country
newspapers, while the total amount
of wood thus acquired would not fill
a hand dray. The country editor re-
ceives wood as subscription when he
can get it, merely out of respect to
custom and tradition, but he uses
coal to keep himself from freezing.
His country sausage consists of
ground beef which the village butch
er cannot otherwise dispose of, and
which the editor pays for in adver-
tising at rates slightly in advance of
those he receives from the patent
medicine man. When the country
editor succeeds in collecting a cash
subscription, the subscriber stops his
paper because times are too hard,
and he is too pore to sign for it any
longer 90
And now comes the editor of the
Memphis MezOS, who says:
"The editor of the Nashville Amer
ican is right in the contention that
the country EDITORS way through life
is not primrose path of frolic, rest
and easy money. Indeed, the coun-
try editor does more for less than any
f- si-~- ---~---L~- 81 -~-------.,. ==e
Is kind of pack horse for all the
troubles and the enterprises of his
town. He very often has to take out
his advertising bills in trade and ex-
change job work for groceries. He
IS required to mention everything
good that everybody does, and to be
blind to the faults of the community.
''If he is wide-awake newspaper
man and essays to publish all the
news without fear or favor, he is ac-
cused of knowing too much, charged
with being a stirer-up of strife, and
people threaten to shoot him full of
holes. If, on the other hand, he hap
pens to be endowed by nature with a
pacific disposition and has no delight
to pass away time by walking around
like a world power in a state of con-
slant preparedness for war and does
not publish the truth, he is not par
ticularly molested, but people say
that he is mossback and back num-
Der, and that there is nothing in his
paper. If he sends a bill for the
paper in advance, he is accused of
having committed an outrage by some
people, and if he allows the bill to
run on, the party in arrears will, in
nine cases out of ten, inform him that
he doesn't remember having ordered
the paper, that he didn't get it regu-
larly, and that he did not want it,
anyway.
"He has to aid all sorts of eleemosy-
nary institutions, free of charge, or be
accused of being stingy, and when he
takes advertisements from business
enterprises which are Objectionable to
good folks he gets few hot roasts
fresh from the fiery griddle of that
able statesman and defender of the
faith who sometimes signs himself
"Law and Order" He is constant
1y roasted by enterprising merchants
for not getting out a mammoth edi-
ton each week, advertising the splen-
did resources of the town, and when
he goes to these merchants to solicit
a small display ad he is informed by
them that advertising doesn't pay.
We could go on enumerating the vi
cissitudes of the country editor until
we had exhausted columns of space
and scores of readers. However,
country journalism has its bright side,
which the man who has left it to en-
gage in work on the city daily can
we'll appreciate. There are in many
daily newspaper Offices today care
worn hearts that are signing for the
seclusion of a weekly tripod and many
weary hands that yearn once more for
the friendly grasp of the old time
friend, the Washington handpress.
We believe a conservative statesment
is that the one thing that is worse
than being country editor is to be a
city editor. The newspaper aspirant
jumps from the weekly frying pan to
jump back again" Press ana
Printer.
"No," said Miss Cayenne, ~
shouldn't say that he is illiterate.'
"What should you say ?"
"That his vocabulary is too large.
He has acquired more words than he
H. - L.