The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-26

readers, since, in large measure, then
men who make our magazines are the
same men who publish our books.
Instead of looking into a popular
paper, book or magazine" writes Mr..
Phillips, ITO see what vulgarities made
it so popular, the writers and critics
who appeal from their own to a re-
mote future generation might learn
something if they would look into that
paper. book or magazine to see If there
isn't something there, some bold sweep
of the great chord of universal human
nature which has caused popularity
in spite of the vulgarity.
Americas revolt, expressed in cheap
and popular newspapers and maya
zines, grew out of the very necessities
of her condition. A great democracy
must be educated, and a great democ-
racy Graves education. 1t cannot read
what it cannot understand; it cannot
understand what is deliberately adj
dressed to the few and interests a few
only, interesting them often because
they fancy that interest in what is
above the heads of the masses is a
mark Of superiority. Out of the need
of education, out of the demand for
education grow the high school of
cheap newspapers and the college and
university of cheap popular maya
zines.
American newspapers and magazines,
not even in the old days when the
newness or shallowness of culture
caused many avowed minor writer's to
employ the affectations of involved
style and a muddy or cloudy thought,
were never characterized by the plati-
tudinous yAwnsome righteousness
which leadens the first first-class mag
azines and reviews of Great Britain
and the continent. We never did deep
ly admire classes and reverence. We
were always disposed to suspect that
the stuff that clings to our own bones
is of the same consistency as the stuff
of which stars and all things really or
reputedly high are made. We never did
buy many newspapers or magazines or
books to have something to sleep over
and to give us intellectual caste We
were ready, even impatient for illus
trated newspapers and illustrated mag
azines when they came. If the "Edin-
boro" or the "Quarterly" when il can't
get much word pictures as a Sidney
Smith, or Macauley, or a De Quincy
could paint, would supply the lack
with pictures, how they would tighten
the dreary pages of matter that is
highly informative but extremely diff
fcult to read in the pretentions and
poverty-stricken language of Mr.. In
tellectual Nobody.
Here is a suggestion for the editors
in-chief of some of our so-called solid"
magazines. have in mind one which
can present an apparently almost
flawless title to being the Oldest of our
serious periodicals-and in it's early
days it was, with a brilliant relapse
now and then, a mighty serious" mat
ter. 1t never smiled, If it could posi-
bly, avoid it. 1t was resolutely deter
mined to convey information in way
which as few cared about. Once in a
while a real writer seems to have
broken into it"-possibly the dearth
Of real writers was in part RESPONSE
ble-but in the main 1t was possessed
by men whose ideas hadn't caught up
with their vocabularies," as ex-senator
Jones Of Nevada would say.
"Respectability was it's chief claim
to consideration-respe plus
an occasional burst Of almost apollo
getic timeliness or human interest.
Whenever II became or showed signs
of becoming magazine worthy OF hui
man beings while as he sat I'm the
lightning express that darts us from
eternity, human beings showed their APP
probation by buying II. Usually II re-
manned unread and respectable, Il 1T
ornament for the center table Of an Un-
used library,