The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1905-07-28
NEWSPAPERS and REFORM
By William Allen White, Gazette, Emporia, Kansas

he was running the Oyster Bay Tri-
bunc, would he 20 right after the
gamblers and saloonkeepers and viola
tors of the law, who lived in his town,
would he print the item that showed
how the local banker was gouging in
his interest account, would he dare
to go to the courthouse and get the
personal property tax list and run it
or would he consider the larger good
and take his typewriter in hand and
blaze away at the practice OF poly
gamy in Utah, the inlquity of the
fruit trnst IN California or the VIOLA
tion of the game laws in Maine? It|
Is one thing to be a president with
tiftv-thousa nd dollars year raining
on the tin-roof whether you work or
not, and quite another thing to be the
editor Of country paper IN a board
sidewalk town, dependent upon re-
tanning the good graces of the people
for your board and keep. There is
something inspiring in the sweetly
solemn thought that you don't fear
Saturday night, that gives a president
a courage in busting the trusts, which
a country editor knowing that the
boys ere tired Of taking orders for
their weeks wages on the clothing
store-someway doesn't feel. Roose-
velt is a brave man, but if he was
running a country paper, and found
that the chairman of the printing
committe in the council was getting
a good many orders for pauper GRO
ceries in his store contrary to the
letter Of the statute-do you suppose
the president would open up in the
next weeks paper and print all the
news? Grover Cleveland did braye
thing in sending the troops to Chicago
but if he had been running the Buz-
zard's Bay Weekly World do you sup
pose he would have had the nerve TO
jump on the druggist for illegal sales
OF liquor whose wife came over to sit
| up with the Gle veland children when
they had the scarlet fever? Joe Can
non is supposed to be Indifferent to
public clamor, but if he was running a
little country daily down in Illinois,
and lot of advertisers came to the
office to tell him that they would
order out their ads if he didn't stop
printing the news about the smallpox
and driving trade from town-what
would he do? The eternal cheerful
ness of President Roosevelt is remark.
ed the world over. A man can afford
to be cheerful who doesn't have to
take anything out in trade and gets
all his salary in cash. But supposing,
after he had plugged away for twenty
years making the best possible paper
for Oyster Bay he should find out that
a number of his neighbors and best
friends were encouraging young
man to come down from New York
and start a bright, snappy paper,
and were telling this youngster that
if some man would just come to
Oyster Bay with little enterprise he
would have no trouble in running
Roosevelt out of town in a year or so!
Wouldn't that take the kinks out Of
| bis grin and make his face look like
an aggravated case of before taking?
IIe can preach the simply life and
have pie for breakfast in his present
high estate, but if he was running Il
country paper there would be five
thousand conSiderate critics in Oyster
Bay and vicinity who would read the
files OF his paper and paste things in
the scrap-books and throw them up to
him every time he changed his mind.
And now all this brings up the ques-
tion: What are we here for, and If so
at how much a line? Here we are
American editors grunting our collar
buttons off On the lever that moves
the world, with the old handle flying
up every few days knocking out our
teeth, taking fifty percent of the legal
rate for printing. while statesmen are
taking hundred and fifty cents OF
their pay; here we are galloping up
and down the earth carrying other
peoples burdens, bearing other peo-
pies sorrow. taking our pay in due
bills on st. P9ter-all for what? Fo1
the fun Of gettin the smell of news
ink in our noses, for the joy Of ripping
open the familiar old exchanges, fo1
the pleasure Of making a three days
, speech every ninety days at the note
, counter Of the bank, for the delecta.
5 tion OF getting complimentary tickets
, to church socials and for the sweet
satisfaction of being too unpopular
ever to be asked to act as pallbearers
at funerals. 1t is a great business
, this newspaper business. And reform
ing the world is mighty happy diver.
sion, and il Andrew Carnegie forgets
: us with his hero medals there is some
I comfort IN knowing that as we turn
v to the right when we finally 20 up
, we have our harp check paid for BY
: the best line Of free church adyertis
y ing that ever has been printed in tht
t world.