The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1909-01-13
Country Editors.
independent as a Hog on Ice
Compared With the City Man.
From the Washington lIa.j Democrat.

The country editor is as inde-
pendent as hog on ice, compared to
the big city editor. OF course, he de-
fers to his biggest advertiser. When
his biggest advertisers daughter gets
married, he swears by the long horn
spoon that she is fairy nymph, when
ten to one her feet don't track and
her hat is on crooked. He defers to
his "oldest subscriber" who pays for
dozen copies to send to kin, and
when he comes to town he speaks of
"our prominent citizen, Mr.. Doodab,"
and writes nice pieces about the seam
he drives and about how liberal he is
at the church and to charity, when he
knows doggoned we'll that he pays
the preacher in scabby potatoes and
vocal chords, and makes his wife go
barefoot in summer to save ZOE
leather. However, aside from that,
the country editor is as independent
as we said he was.
But he asks no odds from his city
brother, and dad bump his picture, he
doesn't ask for any nice pieces to be
written about him. He eats three
square meals a day, If he can get
them, and If not he writes nice pieces
about the land that flows with milk
and honey, and swears "by gum"
that his party is entitled to the credit.
Ask favors from our city brothers?
Not on your chin whiskers. The coun-
tary editor breathes the pure, free air
Of liberty. and you get more patriot
ism in the average country paper in
week than you get in the big city
daily in coon's age. The country
editor thinks he believes what he
writes, while half the cityAeditors-
we mean the political and religious
| writers-write what they are paid to
write. Thus many Democrat Is
boosting for the Republican party.
while the Republican editor writes
nice pieces about Bryan. In the
country. tless your life, we live near
to nature and near to our critics, who
| find us before we find ourselves. If
we renig on any proposition, before
sundown half dozen offended SUBJ
scribers are in the Office trying to
| make a door mat of the editor and
trying to stop their vile paper.
| Tell us the country editor has a
hard lot! Maybe he has, but he is
at least on the square. He believes
what he says, unless 1t is his big ad-
vertiser who believes it for him. But
you come a good deal nearer to the
facts than you do in the city paper,
where the work is done by a force
of writer's, and nobody is actually re-
sponsible, because nobody knows who
the guilty parties may be.
The country editor, bless you, he
sees just as many funny things and
laughs up his sleeve just the same as
you big city editors do. He sees
shams and pretense and the men who
work religion and those who try to
work the lodge and those who are
bosses and those who only think they
are, but he just laughs. AS James
Whitcomb Riley says of Old Jap Mil
Ter, He just chawed on" So we just
chaw on.
Never mind writing nice pieces
about the country editors. You may
feel sorry for them, but don't let then
find 1t out, or you might find yourself
In contact with stuffed club. 1t i:
all right to feel sorry for them, but
you had better not say anything about
1t. Many of them are where they are
from choice. There are country edi
tors who could command more con
spicuous positions, but they prefer
their life of ease and luxury and affiu
ence and high living and independ
ence and Independent thinking to any
of your measly, little, cooped-up, mar
row, hack-writing city editorships
Now, is this clear? If so, then pas!
the pie.