The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-12-12
TOWN TALK
By THE NAN ABOUT TOWN.

There is significant fact connected
with local knights of the press that
strikes me as interesting, and that is
that a goodly number of the wielders
OF the pen in this city were originally
designed for holy ORDERS" that is,
they were launched or were about to be
launched on the sea of ministerial SER
vice, encountered gales of doubt and
storms of greater inspiration and so,
naturally enough, drifted into the cur
rent of more far-reaching usefulness
and became newspaper men. say
far greater usefulness advisedly, for |
believe that the greatest pulpit is the
press and that the greatest congrega-
ton is the public. From the pulpit
of thep ress, addressing the congre-
cation of the public, newspaper men
who are conscientious, and statistics
will show that the majority of news
paper men are conscientious, can ac-
complish greater good than men in
most professions. The average preach
er of religion, no matter of what or
thodoxy or UNCONVENTIONAL leaning or
religious complexion, is limited first
of all by his small experience with hui
manity. He is educated in special
ly devised institution where all he
learns is what a certain denomination
may teach him and he goes therefrom
with certificate, into a specialized
pulpit and breaches to very few men,
bers of some isolated congregation.
Perhaps his sermons may be printed
in the newspapers and he may in that
way reach a greater congregation, but
even then his usefulness is woefully
limited because of his fenced, bounded,
vailed and restricted point of view.
On the other hand the newspaper,
man, the newspaper man of experience
Il am not talking about cubs, although
| the average cub, with the newspaper
instinct, has a greater power for good
than the ordinary preacher) is in touch
with the world and with both sides Of
it, with all sides of it, He is in
| touch with the right side and the
wrong side; with the inside and the
outside; with the underside and the
/ topside; with the real side and the
sham side; with the human side and
the show side; with the side of feeling
and with the side of acting. He,
therefore, is a student of human ma
! ture, of human foibles and human vir-
ties, of human sympathies and with
human tricks and schemes. 1t is for
him to report what he sees, what he
hears, what he learns, what he knows
and what he understands through OBJ
servation, deduction, application, study
and experience. He does good by the
exposure of wrong; he holds in place
the over eXuberant and INSCRIPTIONS;
he filings to the public the veriest
treachery of men who are placed in
public trusts; he succeeds where the
police fail; he helps people think
Alright by showing them the ugliness
of wrong and the infinite beauty OF
good; his sarcasm, like a knife, cuts
out the hypocrisy and cant and sophis-
try of legislatures, statesmen, govern
ments, corporations, trusts, million
aires and slick fiends cloaked in near
velvet virtue. The newspaperman
also is merciful. He conceals where
no good may be accomplished by ex-
posture. The hayward woman who
| perhaps was desperate does not appeal
in vain to his merciful forgetfulness;
the man upon whom a family is de-
pendent may trust the newspaper man
to forget some violation of the law of
which the poor fellow was guilty. The
merciful newspaper man prints what
he knows man means to say and not
what he actually says, for perhaps he
has said what might be taken up and
made wrong of.
The daily newspaper is the modern
daily Bible.
To return to the original idea of this
article:
There are about a score of news
paper men employed in this city and
writing regularly on the stats of the
daily English newspapers What I say
of course, applies to newspapers print.
ed in any language.
OF these twenty, according to person
al observation, there are at least five
and believe there are more, who were
originally designed for the ministry
Five is a tremendous proportion, anC
| have said it is more, for five of TWEEN,
ty is one-fourth.
What does it signify?
In my humble opinion it signifies
this, that the greater field of useful
ness, or rather the greater inspiration
for usefulness, is in the newspape
field as compared with the clergy.
| am not going to mention names
for | have no right to mention tn
names of others without their con
sent Inasmuch as | am not going t