Omaha daily bee., 1910-02-20

plates and under another
similar set Of cylinders, both sides are
printed simultaneously and the paper Is
then mechanically cut, pasted, folded,
and delivered in completed
condition. These presses, driven by
direct connected electric motors. are
now built on the unit system, so that they
may be expanded, just as may be a unit
system bookcase, and thus made to eat
up one, two. three, six or ten great rolls
OF raw paper at the same time. con-
verting them into papers OF four, six,
eight, ten, twelve pages, or any multiple
or combination OF those numberss in one
or several colors, and apparently this
process could be multiplied almost indef-
initely.
The production Of the modern news
paper is also largely dependent on, and
its development therefore concurrent With
the perfection of our means OF rapid com
munication and transportation. The gath
ering Of the news today taxes all known
devices Of communication and the distri-
button of the printed newspaper calls into
requisition all the available facilities for
transportation. The growth Of the news
paper from a local chronicle Of petty hap
penlngs and neighborhood gossip into the
contemporaneous mirror of world events
could proceed no faster than the evolu-
ton Of these auxiliary agencies. ! need
hardly do more than refer to the notable
achievements in this field which make up
a long list, including Fulton's steamboat,
Stephenson's locomotive, Morse's tele-
graph, Fields Atlantic cable, Alexander
Graham Bells telephone, Edison's phono-
graph, Marconl's wireless, the automobile
and the airship.
Other indispensable requirements for the
modern newspaper have been supplied by
the free public schools, endowing every
willing child with the priceless boon of
literacy and the Inauguration of universal
manhood suffrage, instilling a general de-
sire for Information and instruction on the
needs of sel~f-government. 1t goes with
out saying that the relative intelligence
Of the people of a community determines
the possibilities of newspaper publication.
Last. but not least, should be enumer-
ated the development of the executive and
organizing ability to utilize all these agen-
cies for the purpose Of news gathering
the human element constituting the live
wire which in each local newspaper field
ascertains what is happening ofS)ublic in
terest and gathers together information
about it, and the still larger organizing
ability that c~o-ordinates all these smaller
units into a great cooperative press asso-
citation to maintain a colossal reservoir Of
world news into which each participating
newspaper pours the important items it
has collected while drawing out what IT
wants of the combined and reassorted ac-
emulation of all Of them-the whole me-
chanism working continuously night and
day, on land and on sea, encircllng the
/ N,ha kNN,a ,Iak. Ll-t. l.
order to put on the breakfast table each
morning a pen picture of the world doing
that, considering the obstacles, is a mira
Gle Of speed, p%romptness and accuracy.
After this review, need we marvel that
the advent of the newspaper as we know
it is of so recent date? The dispute that
has been waged over the first publication
entitled to be called a newspaper has been
as fierce as the controversy for the laurels
Of north pole discovery, but no claim has
been established that antedates the be-
ginning Of the seventeenth century. The
Frankfort Journal has proved up on the
year 1918, with a close second in a Dutch
paper at Antwerp commencing 1916. The
Famous London Times made it's initial ap-
pearance In 1856. The first newspaper reg
ularly published in this country is said
to nave been the Boston News Letter,
issued the first part of the eighteenth
century. Up to the early part of the nine
teenth century, we had newspapers is
sued but weekly or less frequently, re-
sembling a periodical pamphlet. Pamph-
lettering had previously been the means
OF interchanging ideas, discussion and ar
gument, so the early newspapers were
much like pamphlets with a few news
items and advertisements thrown in. A
compilation carefully made last wear
showed that there were in this country
only eighty-two newspapers with records
of continuous publication for 100 years or
more, emitting them to membership in a
century club, of which fifty-five are daily
and twenty-seven weekly publications.
But nearly all the achievements which
have made possible the newspaper of today
would themselves hardly have been posi-
BILE without the newspaper Of yesterday.
The newspaper has been an active con-
tributor to the upbuilding as we'll as a
beneficiary; its mission has been and Is to
use its great power to the end of still fur
Their broadening the area OF popular in
telligence and helping along the triumph
Of truth over ignorance.
How does the newspaper perform this
part of its work? 1t does 1t by bringing
NS RNoPAS via 10 ulSClOSGQ Dy
the searchAght OF publicity directed at all
human activities. The part the newspaper
plays in popular government is so gener-
ally understood that 1t scarcely calls for
calculation. The newspaper has been
dubbed the fourth estate" and nowhere
has popular government been really sue
cessful without the existence OF a free
~vigilant and untrammeled public press on
guard as the sentry OF Individual liberty.
ready to expose corruption and oppression
and to sound the alarm against the an.
proaeh of the tyrant. l venture to affirm
the belief that the most potent deterrent
or Wrongdoing and the most promisinp
q corrective of nearly all of our CRYING
abuses, social, Industrial and government.
tai, lie in the line Of publicity and tho
I molding Of a public opinion whose penal.
I ties fall more certainly, and more heavily
on the offender than any punishment pre-.
? scribed by law. In his epochnl works or
the American Commonwealth James
f. Bryce calls ours pre~-eIainently "a govern.
ment by public opinion and devotes 6
$ chapter to the newspaper as a source anc
. vehicle Of public opirion. II individual
newspapers and journalists enjoy les,
r power here than abroad, the cause Is to b,
s found, - declares Mr.. Bryce, mot in the in
ferior ga ma ifV Of the adfforS aud ,,..g...-