Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1910-07-27
PIG MIGHTIER THAN THE PEN
Dissertation Upon the Editorial Pro-
fessiOn by Brilliant Iowa
Editor.

WllIcl, CuOllSI anu many Ollcl
things too numerous to mention,
made a hit at the recent editorial
meeting at Iowa City in paper
which he read to the newspaper
men. While it pertains directly to
the profession, it contains so many
good things, writ in his own ini-
mitable style, that we know our
people will be glad to read it:
1T was our esteemed citizen,
George AIDE, who declared that
there was time when he believed he
knew all about three of our most de-
| lightful pations-editing news
paper, writing comic opera, and
running a hotel. Mr.. AIDE still be-
! lieves he can run a hotel
Il venture to say that the profess
| sion of country newspapering con-
tains more chumps to the square
inch than any other class of citizen
ship, unless it is a barber who gives
a shave for nickel and a hair cut
for l 5 cents.
IF you don't believe this, COM
pare the prices of job printing and
advertising maintained fifteen years
ago with those of today.
You will find that where the
country printer used to get $500 for
500 envelopes, he is now glad to
beat his competitor to it by scaling
that price anywhere from so cents
to S1.00. When l entered the news
paper work the prevailing price for
dc ft.nn ~
1925. Now there is an unseemly
scramble to get the job for nearly
| one-third less.
THE same idiotic and ruinous
reduction of prices on job work has
affected every bid that comes into
the office, and this in spite of the
fact that never before was the Iowa
printer compelled to pay such sala-
ries as now, while the quotations on
paper stock, machinery, type, inks,
etc, has risen like a thermometer
in laundry.
| The fiat rate advertising farce has
cut an even deeper hole in the pro-
| fits of the weekly publisher. Think
of newspaper with 1000 circula-
ton and fiat rate of 10 cents an
inch furnishing a half page for
$40. Under the old fashioned
and much abused scale system, the
use of which built up newspaper
properties that made men indie
pendent years ago, you couldn't
buy a single column in a good paper
| for less than the price of a half
page today. But the advertising
agencies drove the weekly papers to
adopt the plan of the big dailies,
with their enormous circulations
and jump scale advertising rates,
with the result that advertising
profits in many offices in this state
have been almost cut in two, for it
must be remembered that in the
majority of communities it is pos
sible to secure only about so much
advertising, one year with another.
! The effect of this is that not one
fifth of the weekly newspapers in
Iowa return anything like a salts
| factory profit to their owners, who
slave their heads off year after year
for the satisfaction of beating the
other fellow out of work which will
yield no profit.
These are some of the reasons
why the pig is mightier than the
pen. NJ
Il am here to say that the man
who owns eighty acres of Iowa land
and who has brains enough to till it.,
makes a lot of country newspaper
men look like the last sad remnant
of a Dutch lunch.
The farmer has the best of it all
around He is as independent as
the American Express company. He
doesn't have to write soulful obt-
uary over the remains of some
peak-headed bloke who caved his
wife's ribs in with grub stake and
kept on display an exhibit of cut
plug profanity that would make the
efforts of steamboat mate sound
| like meeting of the Epworth
league. He doesn't have to go into
raptures over the beauty of an open
faced bride with a cast of counten-
ance that would blow out the gas.
and he can say what he dunn pleases
about candidate for congress.
something no newspaper ever dared
to do unless he had just lost the
postoffice. The farmer isn't requir-
ed to lie until his back teeth fall out.
about the sterling manhood of a
groom with ears like a cauliflower
plant, and the brain power of a
shoat. He doesn't have to run a
piano contest for the community,
make everybody sore but the win
ner, and then print a Is cent half
tone of the beauty that looks like
a tintype of grandma at the age of
10. There is nothing in the farm
er's curriculum that obliges him to
paint the local soprano as a heaven
sent songster, when in fact she has
a voice that would make guinea
hen weep. He isn't called upon to
paint the virtues of prominent
citizen who earned his money by
collecting notes with a draw shave
and who would have an attack of
heart failure If suddenly separated
from two bits in real money.
THE farmer can stand on the
street corner and roar about small
pox in town until his whiskers curl
up like a lean man with the wind
collie, and If the newspaper man
runs a three-line item to the same
effect his advertisers will land on
MIN and make him resemble a
crushed fruit salad. If the printer
opens his head about the presence