The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-12-11

and Thomas Jefferson.
You may not have quite forgotten
! that Boston gave birth to the first
and greatest of American Journalists
But Franklin, anticipating the coun-
sci of Horace Greeley to go west and
grow UP with the country, ran away
from Boston and went to Philadelphia
The disappearance of the one-man,
idea from the newspaper is q part OF
the universal decline of individualism
in contemporary life. 1t Is the off
spring of conditions inevitable to the
leveling tendencies Of modern inven-
ton and the centralizing force of
population and wealth.
There is no longer Clay or Web
ster in the senate, a Booth or JEFF
ferson upon the stage. Carnegie, Nor
gan and Rockefeller are the merest
figures of speech. The ownership Of
newspaper properties has passed from
the founders, who possessed each
some idiosyncracy OF his own, into the
custody of estates and corporations.
Yet, if man Of the signal gifts of
Clay and Webster and Booth and JEFF
ferson should appear-his methods adj
justed to the times and the ever
changing public requirement.
would lack neither for recognition nor
primacy.
Still is it true that the personal can
never be wholly obliterated from
Journalism? AS there must always be
a man behind the gun, there will al.
ways be man behind the printing
press: somebody in authority. 1t is
immaterial whether he work upstairs
or down stairs, whether he be editor
or publisher, and never so retiring and
reserved. If he holds the place of con-
troll he cannot hide himself from the
community in which he lives. In many
ways the newspaper has always been
and must ever continue an autocracy.
AS the public comes to be better
educated in the virtues and not the
vices of the newspaper, will its vir-
tues command priority in the market.
Disinterestedness, the handspring,
good will and good cheer, the solar
system of good journalism, the decent,
she truthful, the unselfish-not incon-
sistent with enterprise and interest
will more and more direct the ambi.
tious among the conductors and the
workers of the daily press, for these
in the long run are the only qualities
which will insure prosperity.
To be kindly, honest, fearless, cap
abie-that is all-speaking the Ian
guage and wearing the habiliments of
the people and the time; the plain,
patriotic, unpretentious people, bone
of their bone and flesh of their flesh;
sincere and at the same time an eff
fectiye deliverer of their better
thought, their loftier purpose and
their nobler aspiration
Never to seek office Never to take
gift stock. Never to touch campaign
money. These are the precepts the
young journalist should hang upon his
bed post.
nope there is no one of you here
tonight who will not be one day q
managing editor, at least city editor,
and whenever any one of you finds
himself in a position of authority let
him carry these few precepts in his
mind and in his heart. to print moth
ing of a man which he would net say
to his face; to print nothing of man
in malice; to look well and think
twice before consigning suspect to
the ruin of printers ink; to respect
the old and defend the weak, and
lastly, at work and at play, daytime
and nighttime, to be good to the girls
and square with the boys, for hath 1t
not been written, "Of such is the
kingdom of heaven"