Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1906-04-12

ri 5s,y55b
monthly publications had little in
fluence outside of certain circles OF
cultivated people. The ma gaines
were, for the most part, dull, abstract
and dry when they were not frivolous
ly remote from the actual life and
thought of the nation. I. ssl
"But wonderful change has taken
iplace. The development of the laoun-
try has built up rich and powerful
newspapers East, West. North and
South, and in the center of the
continent. The circulation and the in
Huence of a great city newspaper is
met by the energies of powerful news
papers in other cities; SO that no one
newspaper, however great its cifcula-
ton, covers much territory in this
large. and diversified country of ours.
SIN other words, the American
newspaper has become practically a
local institution. And as we are,5 in
one sense, a federation of peoples.
with many climates, widely diversified
industries and sometimes conflicting
economical interests, to say nothing
of differences in social temperament
and local tradition-with forty-fve
sovereign states independently work
| ing out systems of law through forty
five legislatures-the daily newspaper,
however vast it's organization, how
ever honest and brave and Intelligent
~ edited, cannot speak to the nation
as whole. The influence of the
newspapers is, in this sense, provin-
Icial; generally parochial.
Driven back upon their own local.
ties by outside competition, the daily
newspapers have been forced to build
up great calculations by adding to the
former newspaper-reading public a
great body of readers who could only
/ be reached by sensational meth DDS,
big headlines, vulgar and irrelevant
illustrations and ranting, raving,
reckless appeal to the always latent
spirit of discomfort of the masses who,
find it so hard to live and are only too
ready to blindly applaud attacks, just
or unjust, upon the rich and powerful.
! while the American newspaper
has become local, the American maya
zine has remained national, for the
reason that it is published on the
same day in all parts of the country.
! To succeed, therefore, the magazine
must put itself in touch with the ma,
] ton as a whole. 1t cannot afford to
tie itself to merely local prejudices or
local interests. 5 5Sss$ft 8 Il :s s.
| ut is only few years since one of
the monthly ma azines, then heavily
/ in debt, discovered what a paying
thing it was to enter into the radical
sensational work hitherto monopolized
tby the newspapers and to join in the
passionate, almost unreasoning, ac-
|cusatory movement whipped UP by
journalism. -gs3 b ss s3: n 4. Il
'eThe magazine editor who first
found out that extreme radicalism
and .pelting, unvaried abuse was a
profitable thing, made a great fortune
land commanding position for him
self. One magazine owner after an
iother Joined in the outcry against the
successful ~ American business man
land the successful American business
coyporation; denouncing many evils,
no doubt, but Wickedly and Wilfully
maintaining curious conspiracy of
IsiIence regarding the other sides of
/ the, question so that today we find
| a large part of the newspaper press
land the magazines allied in fierce
land indiscriminat warfare upon the
sIAmerican name and against the stabil-
lily of social and business life which
is necessary to continued prosperity
land happiness. s:3E 3.. 81
God knows Iahave done my share
In attacking and exposing evils in
this country. i take hack no word /
have ever written against individual
or corporate greed or dishonesty.
But 1 believe the time has come when
isomething should be said for the con
Astrnctiye forces that are making this
people increasingly great among the
i nations of the world. S s
There can be no doubt that many
Iof onr business men and many of our
|eorporati onsin this period of com
merciai and Industrial evolution
when The energies OF America have
been organized and developed on a
scale that often surpasses the com
J pass Of individual powers of direc-
ton have drifted into careless and
corrupt ways OF looking at things;
but to say tfat the average successful
american business man Is deliberate
rascal that the mass Of our business
life rest upon cold-bIooded lying and
eheating, that d nation e0nsecrated To
-