The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-10-29
PLACE AND INFLUENCE
OF DAILY NEWSPAPER
IN The F A M | | Y
BY REV. P. K. EDWARDS.

The newspaper is a mirror of the
worlds life. 1t takes the doings anC
savings of all kinds and degrees Of
men and women and prints them out
in black and white where all may
read: and so in the newspaper, we
come face to face with the life of the
world as it is; and when we take into
the family the newspaper, we are ad-
uniting to certain extent the world
with all its sordidness, all its greed
its vice and wickedness, but also its
glory, its strength, its striving after
things good and great, its sacrifices, its
ambitions. Therefore this is most
important question and deeply concerns
the welfare of the family.
1t also deeply concerns the future of
the nation, for the home influence has
more bearing upon the future manhood
and womanhood than all other influence
whether of church or school or what
ever else; and so the question of the
influences which surround the child in
the home is question of national well
fare.
Moreover it is well to keep in mind
that for good or evil the newspaper
does profoundly effect the life of mil
lions, l almost said the majority Of
American families and individuals. 1t
controls their ideals of life, their ideas
of how much good or evil they may
look for in their fellow men, their
opinions of the leaders of national life,
the men for whom they vote and the
movements claiming their support.
With those who have been trained to
think more or less for themselves, who
read and study beyond the newspaper,
it has less influence, but in millions of
homes where there is either lack of
opportunity or inclination to read any
thing but the paper, there it is almost
"the law and the gospel" So our sub
iect is not one of theory only, but
has to do with an actual state of af
fairs
In answering the question concerning
what should be the place and influence
of the newspaper in the family, we ma
turally will discuss the character of the
newspaper OF today. Therefore | will
consider first some of the things the
paper does for us, then the evils con-
nected with the press of today, and
then say what place I think it should
be allowed in the family.
The American newspaper is a great
institution and it does great deal for
us. In fact, we could no more get
along without it than we could without
telephone, railroads and all the other
Instruments of modern life.
In 1897 there were in the United
States two hundred and fifty dailies
having each circulation of from sew
cnty-fve hundred to almost million
ones having circulation of less than
seventy-five hundred Into the publ
cations of these there goes millions Of
moEey and an enormous amount of
human energy, ingenuity and thought.
These papers search out every quarter
of the world for news and carry it to
every home in the land. Through them
we know something of the daily life of
nations on the other side of the globe.
They carry the news Of the poor mans
trouble to the home of the rich, the
rich mans sorrow to the home of the
poor. They tell the story of labor's
struggle of industrial advance; they
spread out church news. In fact, they
gather up and spread before us the
JOY, the sorrow, the failures, the sue
cesses, all the doings of our fellow
men of which otherwise we would
know so little. They are to us what
the town pump or the corner grocery
or the county fair were to our great
grandfathers, only they are more eff
ficient and far reaching.
Without newspapers it would be well
nigh impossible to keep this great ma
ton united whole. They make re-
forms, united action of any kind pos
sible. They are to the thought of the
land, or public opinion, as we call it
what money is to the nations wealth
its means of distribution and efficient
application. Through the press We
keep tab on the men we elect to of
fee. Publicity is the watchdog of g
republic. The newspaper makes pub
licity possible. All this the American
newspaper does and considering The
frailty of human nature and the stand
ards of life which the American PEG
pie have held to, have done it nobly
and well.
But there ale some evils connected
with the American newspaper which
makes the question of it's influence {
serious one.
To my mind the greatest evil, TIN
root of all other evils in the American
newspaper is its commercialism. Tn
paper is run to make money and witt
that end alone in view. Now of cours
there must be certain amount o
commercialism about the paper. /
must make money, for it must hav
money to run on, and there are man,
papers whose commercialism is usual.
kept down to its proper limits. Blu
still it is a generally recognized fac
that too many papers are run with tn
sole and only idea of making money
and that most papers have more o
less of that spirit. This results in
host of evils. The most glaring an