The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-13

What Editor Dana Left to his Paper. Will Irwin, in American Magazine.
 Charles A. Dana has been, dead for eleven years. The men who worked with him have their own estimate of his career, their own belief concerning the thing which he left to the world. That he did leave something perman- ent, something more than a good newspaper property" The Sun will al~ ways maintain. This permanent heri- tage. as expressed in The Sun and by 1t disseminated through the conserva- tive newspapers of the United States, was his conviction that the writing of news of a daily newspaper Is worthy of all the power, all the insight all the command of intellectual tools that there is In any man.
 Dana believed that, the daily newspa- per Is the chief intellectual food, the bread and meat. of a modern people. The most cultivated among us has hardly taken as much from. the con- scious training of the schools as he has from the unconscious training, be- gun in early youth, of the daily news paper. Not the editorial page either the straight news columns. It is the raw material from which opinions are formed; If the material be sh oddly how can the finished product be sound?
 Therefore Dana thought, the work of reporting should be worthy the best that there is in a man-worthy the best he knows of taste that the public taste may not be corrupted. the strafghtest he has of sincerity that the people may not follow vain things the deepest he has of insight tha the people may learn to look below the surface. He believes that the reporter who describes a truckman's wife as a prominent society leader of Harlem" harms the public mind not only by his little lie, but also by his creation of false standards. lie believed that the on such phrases as dull, sIckening thud," "blanched countenance, mad panic" "prostrate victim," and the like is doing his little part to take the edge off the public mind.
 He believed, too. that newspaper writing might be an art In this age when the supreme literary artists are working with the novel. one remem- bers how the pedants and purists scorned the early novels as mere tales. told to amuse the vulgar and shallow. As there has grown up a kind of novel which interprets people to themselves. illumines the soul Of man. so. he tn ought is there a kind of journalism to be attained by the exceptional man, WHICH kOCS OCCPCT NldH loCIb anu reaches a truth deeper than the sur face truths. Though limited and re- strained. this is still an art.
 A reporter grumbled because Dana kept him on Police Court work. Young man. the greatest Police Court repor- ter who ever lived was named Charles Dickens" said Dana. Another com pIained that they had 'boiled down" his story. The story of the crucihxion was told in 500 words said Dana He used to come out all excitement. and pointing to a mark on the margin of a clipping say to MT. Lord. "A great sentence there, Mir. Lord. Who. wrote ft?" "who did that football story?" he asked once, When Dana put such a question his interlocutor used to tremble. There was no telling from his tone whether he meant to praise or to blame. Mir. Lord named the man It's Homer. that's what 1t is" said, Dana "The reporter" he said again "wields the real power of the press" This, with all that 1t implies, was the idea which Dana left to his world, the good that was not inferred with his homes -.