New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1906-02-21
HIS DUTIES WERE MANIFOLD
Country Editors Meet and Com pare
Notes.
Type of Olden Days Rapidly Giving
Place to New.
Meeting in Minneapolis Thursday
Best Attended of Any.

uEHltS GIle pages OF tQ6 secretary S
book Of the Editorial association
meetings since the organization of the
| association in 1867 at the meeting
last Thursday, one of the gray-haired
members said, ''you will find my name
on the first page" Opening the time
worn cover of the book he rapidly ran
over the short list of charter members
! and sure enough among the first of the
list Of names his was there.
That was a long time ago. Things
have changed since then, and the meet
ing this year showed as forcibly as
was possible the distinction between
the country editor of those days and
the present type. There is no ''coun-
try editor" of today. He may conduct
his business in rural community and
may lose what little money he had in
the venture but when he mingles with
the people of the city it is rare indeed
! if there is one whose manners and con-
duct will distinctively mark him as
different from the people of the city.
| Mingling with the members of the
association at Minneapolis were the
! governor of the state, the mayor Of
| Minneapolis and men who have held
high Offices in the councils Of the ma
ton, and there was no difference in
the manner of their appearance than in
that of the editor from the remotest
hamlet in the commonwealth.
! Frank Eddy was there from his
monopoly Of the printing business in
the city of Sank Center, and there was
no more style to his personal appear
ance than when he represented the
! state in the national congress. Fl. G..
Hays fresh from lobbying in the in
!! terest of the drainage league of the
north, with members of congress at
Washington, and all that marked him
! as being different from what he was
while he was resident of Sleepy Eye
was new suit of clothes and smile
| that would not come off.
One thing that impressed the visitor
to the meeting was the many young
men present. More than half of the
attendance was composed Of compare
lively youthful men. The handsome
editor of the Winthrop News with a
new pair Of gloves and an extra curl
> in his mustache, might have passed
for a reporter on the Daily News were
it not for the badge he wore, his style
and makeup were faultless and he was
not once guilty of rubbering at the tall
| buildings, and Paul Dehnel, when
finally he did land and succeeded after
some searching in locating the head
quarters of the association, demon
strated that even if Chaska was hidden
! in the midst Of the hills which form
the banks of the Minnesota river, he
was out in very distant headlines.
1t is evident among the editors as it
is in all other professions. that the
ambition is to make money. The pro-
ject that will not pay is abandoned
and few men stick to paper that does
not provide means of accommodating
something more than a subsistence
| for the day. Herein is the difference
between the type of country editor of
today and that of former years.
| Money-what did he care for gold?
His remuneration was cordwood, dry
goods, groceries, railroad passes,
swamp lands, books. His center of
| happiness was his editorial page,
which weekly went teaming with his
virile thought to the farm lands sur
rounding his Office. He was com
position, job printer, pressmann, bill
collector, editor inchief, localreporter,
political authority and philosophical
fountain besides which the village
clergyman and doctor paled into in
significance.
He was for many years throughout
the Northwest the most potential edu-
cational factor that it possessed. He
was unpurchasable. Often it was a
close pinch for him to meet the express
bills for his patent insides, often his
family dined on one of his editorials
and little bread, often he was
tempted as temptation can only come
to a man who needs, but we can point
to none of those early editors upon
whose editorial honor there rests the
slightest stain.
These were the men who waded in
winter time to their Offices in snow to
their waists; who faced the drouth and
the grasshoppers or the Indians war
whoop in the summer time, who each
believed his community was a new
metropolisville, who held themselves
to be the mouth-pieces of the truth.
/ These were men of the frontier type
strong, deep-voiced and sturdy as
| the times demanded, and the call that
/ they gave still rings out across the