Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1907-09-19
LOCAL PAPERS VALUE.
No Modern Town Can Get Along
Without the Press.
REFLECTIONS OF A VETERAN
Old Newspaper Man Hears of a Town
Without a Paper-He Calls n
Local Weekly the Pioneer OF
Progress-Its Value to h
= puhlic.

Public.
81 have just read a little item" re-
marked the veteran newspaper man,
''to the effect that a certain town In
Texas is now without a newspaper.
The publisher of the local paper has
moved his plant to another town and
started a paper there. Well, I'm sor.
ry for the town that he left"
"Oh, | reckon it can get along yer
we'll without a newspaper" said the
cynical listener. Rome lasted sew
eral centuries without any newspa--
pers and grew to be a stable city"
Very true" replied the veteran,
Every true. But you must not for
get that Athens and other rival towns
likewise were without local papers.
You are talking of ancient times. /
am discussing the present. Just sup
pose that the Greek metropolis, for
instance, had possessed a thriving
and progressive newspaper-the only
one on earth. I'm decidedly of the
opinion that little old Rome would
have sat on one hill instead of sew
en- and Athens would have spread
out until the ancient rapid. transit
problem would have been the big
gest public question in Greece"
"But what has all this got to do
with the little town IN Texas?"
well, just this. We are living
now in a newspaper age. The local
newspaper is the great town booster.
Ancient Rome could grow without
newspapers, but any modern city
would shrivel up and leave only a
dry spot on the map if all it's news
paper should shut up shop and move
to rival cities. The local paper is
the pioneer of progress. No other
agency has been so powerful in the
building up and development of
America. The great West and
Southwest and Northwest have been
built largely by newspapers. Car
penters and bricklayers and plaster
ers and plumbers do their part, but
the newspaper does more.
GA hundred years ago the United
States consisted of a fringe of popu-
lation along the Atlantic coast and a
few pioneers in the wildernesses far
Their inland. About that time the
newspaper began to make a showing.
From year to year it has been COM
ing more and more into evidence,
with improvements in machinery, in
paper manufacture, in type casting
and the like. Now the local paper is
a public necessity. No town can gel
along without at least one paper
There are very few towns now that
are without their home weekly. Take
the map of any State and look il
over closely. Get a newspaper di.
rectory and study it along with the
map. You'll find that any town big
enough to be on the map has its
local paper, with very few excep.
tions.
LAS I say. the town paper is thu
pioneer, In many cases the pape
has arrived even before the town
This applies particularly to Kansas
Oklahoma Nebraska, the Dakota:
and Texas. l have had experience il
some of those States in the newspa
per line when they were in what yo
might call the pioneer stage, and
know what I'm talking about. / nov
see telegraph news items from town
in Kansas, for instance, which I kney
twenty years ago as mere spots OF
the prairies, laid out in town lot
and waiting for population. In sew
eral OF these town the first buildin,
put up was a hotel. One room wa
occupied by a small printing plant
and a local paper was published
News? Why, plenty of it. While tn
town may have had eniy half a doze,
people, it had bright prospects, gpea
possibilities, and the editor was cor
tlnually writing about those possibi]
tiles and prospects. New citizen
were coming in, outsiders were buy
ing lots, and that little newspape
grew up with the town, being itse]
n chief instrument of the town
growth. 1t circulated outside and le
n outsiders know the prospects an
b, possibilities. Now those towns whic
started in that way have daily paper.
most OF them, and a home circulatip
that is not to be despised.
I'm sorry for that Texas tow
because it doesn't seem to be Twin
in this day and generation-in til
newspaper age. It apparently didn
v enterprise enough to keep Ii
local editor there. He has move,
no doubt, to a town which knows
good thing when it sees it and is di
posed to help push it along. whe
l call this the newspaper age I mea
that it is the age of adyertising :,
publicity. Printers ink publicity
the kind that counts. Every newsn.
per is a big free advertisement f.
Its community. 1t talks. It b1oy
the towns horn when otherwise -
horn would not be blown. r. NAL,
the town where it is published =,
centre OF the earth for the neon
who live there and for others M
It may induce to locate there.
these days a town without sumn+;,
enougn TO appreciate the public val,
OF a local paper is not worth ~.
space. and it won't encumbar :,
ground very long" :
A Tennessee man has inst diea frr