Los Angeles herald., 1905-10-27

/ Judge D. X, Trask J.
G.E+E.E..s-s,
United States stands before the world
as being almost free from such crime.
We are looked upon by the world a )
honest and upright in our dealings.
We are the foremost nation in the
world today"
George E. Keefer. chancellor COM
mander of the Samson, delivered a
short address and General Herman
Schaffner spoke of Pythianism, it's
origin and its purpose Byron L.
Oliver responded to the toast, "Civic
Liberty
"Our Guest" an address to Judge
Trask, was delivered by Hon. Frank
James.
american Citizenship was re-
sponded to by Hon. Thomas F. Fitch,
and Hon. Frank r. Dominguez an
swered with a clever address to a toast
to "California.'
One of the principal addresses OF the
evening was that given by Rev. Bob
Burdette on the Press" Below Pur-
dettes subject was a single line of ex-
planation as follows, "The basis of a
government being the opinion of the
people the first object should be to
keep that right and were it left to me
government without newspapers or
newspapers without a government, 1
should not hesitate a moment to pre-
fer the latter"
Pays Tribute to the Press
Rev. Mr.. Burdette's address was as
follows:
"Thackeray has said it for all time,
and to the despair of every man who
sits down to write or rise to speak
about "the Press" Pendennis and
Warrington are walking home in the
gray of the morning-the pallor of the
dead yesterday which no one in all the
world knows quite so well as morning
newspaper men. They are going to
their rooms in the Temple from a
meeting of The Back Kitchen club
in the Fielding's head. Passing through
the Strand as they talk, they go by
newspaper office, still brilliantly light
ed" Reporters are coming out of the
place, or rushing up to it in cabs:
there are lamps burning in the EDITORS
room, and above the compositors are
at work; the windows of the building
are a blaze of gas.
Look at that Pen said Warning
ton; there she is; the great engine
she never sleeps. She has her ambas-
sadors in every quarter of the world
officers march along with armies; her
ENJOYS walk into statesmen's cabinets.
They are ubiquitous. Yonder journal
has an agent, at this minute, giving
bribes at Madrid; and another inspect
ing the price of potatoes in Covent
Garden. Look! Here comes the For
eign Express galloping in. They will
be able to give news to Downing street
tomorrow; funds will rise or fall for
tunes be made or lost. Lord B. will
get up, and holding the paper in his
hand, and seeking the noble marquis in
his place, will make a great speech,
Never Saw Real Speed
"And yet Thackeray never saw in
all his life, even in London, the worlds
metropolis, such newspaper offices as
we have in Los Angeles. He never saw
a prophecy of such presses; he never
heard a story come in by telegraph
or telephone. The Foreign Express
galloping up!' Reporters in cabs' A
reporter on any paper in Los Angeles
who should take a Cab-a plaza hack,
if you will, because he was in a hurry,
would be sent to Highland. For him
the time destroying trolley or the space
devouring buzz wagon, or scorning
these semi obsolete patience-wearing
plodders of slowness, he wakes the in
stantaneaus telephone with wrathful
parentheses at sleeping Central
"'She never sleeps! 1t seems to us,
looking back at the press of Thacke-
rays day, that it did nothing but
sleep. What else could there be for a
newspaper to do, after the ship came
in with news only 80 days from New
York and six months from California?
Greater than its direct influence it
seems to me, is the unconscious int1u-
ence of the press. For example, a
newspaper that is known to be the or
gan of a party, faction or interest, IS
Influential only within the limited sphere
of it's own coferie. Beyond certain
bound, it's word is discredited, its state
ments are discounted
"The newspaper has an influence
greater than its arguments. That is
why so few men stop their favorite pa
per when they get mad at 1t. The
Springfield Republican, in Samuel
Bowles' day, had a character like a
man. Not reputation, but charac-
ter. When it mugwumped it carried
a very few of it's readers with 1t into
that strange freakland of mugwump-
cry But it lost very few subscribers.
When Horace Greeley accepted the
nomination of the enemy for president
the subscribers of the New York Tri-
bune went back on the papers new
and misfit principles, utterly and unan-
imously. But they kept on taking the
Tribune. You can boycott anything on
earth more easily than a newspaper.
Because the people who do boycott it
never did take it and never would take
it, anyhow And the people who have
got into the habit of taking it may
get mad at it.
"Granted-and he is bold to rashness
who expresses a doubt of 1.-THE edi-
torial infallibility; it follows that the
more newspapers a city has, the
greater, more extended and more va
ried the infallibility Of its leading.
Shows Greater Versatility
1--WE are blessed in Los Angeles with
six kinds, and when we seek light on
such plain questions as the site of the
library and the new city hall, we are
dazzled by volcanic glares. This does
not disprove the infallibility. 1t mere
ly sets forth the versatility. The effect
is but natural An excess of light is
binding.
"The superior wisdom of the press