The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-14

fact that each of the four men who work on it has many friends. By the time all the items that might injure some of their friends are omitted very little is left"
 T wish you would print about our school teacher" said farmers wife to me one afternoon. Say that she is the best teacher in the country" But 1 can't do that-two hundred other teachers would be angry. You write the piece, sign it and I'll print it."
 What are you running a news paper for if you can't please your subscribers" she demanded-and cancelled her subscription.
 So the country editor leaves out certain good things and certain bad things for the very simple reason that the persons most interested are 1 close at hand and can find the indivi- dual responsible for the statements, He becomes wise in his generation and lavoids chastisements and libel suits. l He finds that there is no lasting re- gard in sheer, no satisfaction in gratifying the impulse to say things that bring tears to women's eyes, nothing to gloat over in opening a wound in mans heart If he does not learn this as he grows older in the service he is poor country edi- | tor.
 "The power of the country press | in Washington surprises me- said a Middle West Congressman last winter. I During my two terms I have been Impressed with it constantly. I doubt | if there is a single calm utterance in any paper in the United States that dos not carry some weight in Wash lington among the members of Con- gress. You might think that what some little country editor says does not amount to anything, but 1t means a great deal more than most people realize. When the country editor who l is looking after nothing but the coun- try printing gives expression to some rational idea about national question the man off here in Congress knows that ttt comes from the grass-roots. 1 The lobby, the big railroad lawyers | NIllQ lLAcLl NletD9 pL pGOPlC lGdllAS llAC power of the press, but they hate it. I have heard them talk about it and shake their heads, and say, "Too Imuch power thereM The press is more powerful than money"
 This was not said in flattery, but because he had seen on Congressmen's desks the means Of country weeklies, and he knew how closely they were read. The smallest editorial paragraph tells the politician of the condition. in that papers community, for he knows tat it is put there because the editor has gathered the idea from some one whom he trusts as a leader, and the politician knows approximately who
 that leader is. So the country editor
 often exerts power of which he knows little.
 But politics is only a part of the Icountry editors life. The social af
 fairs of the community are nearest to
 him. The proud father who brings in a cigar with d notice of the seventh
 baby's arrival (why cigars and babies
 should be associated in mems minds
 I never underStood), the fruit farmer
 who presents some fine Ben Davis ap- lples in the expectation that he will lget a notice, are but types. The editor lmay have some doubts concerning the need of a seventh child in the family lof the proud father, and he may not Ibe particularly fond of Ben Davis ap- lples, but he gives generaus notices be- lcause he knos that the gifts were i,orov,,,,toJ l,1y 1,i,d baortc ond tba f tIa
 givers are his friends.
 When joy comes to the household 1t is but the working of the hearts
 best impulses to desire that all should
 share it. The news that the princess
 of the family has, after years of wait ing, welded prosperous merchant of
 the neighboring county brings the family into prominence in the home lpaper. Seldom in these busy times
 does the editor get a piece of wedding
 cake, but nevertheless he fails not to
 say that the bride is "one of our love Hest young ladies and the groom is
 worthy of the prize he has won" The
 city paper does not do that. Here and there a country editor tries to put on
 city airs and give the bare facts of
 social functions" without personal
 touch to the lines. But unfrequently
 does he succeed in reaching the hearts
 of his readers, and somehow he finds that his contemporary across the
 stret, badly printed, sprinkled with
 typographical errors and halting in
 it's grammar, but profuse in it's lauda-
 tions, is getting an unusual number
 of new subscribers Even you, though
 you may pretend to be unmindful. are lnot displeased when on the day after lyour party yau read that the guests