Graham guardian., 1912-02-23
COUNTRY EDITOR
A Portion Of Champ Clark !
Speech Delivered Thir-
teen Years Ago


well worth reading The House was
considering the Loud bill, which
proposed to increase the postal rates
on country newspapers and to adopt
number of restrictions on their
transmission through the mails.
Champ Clark defeated the bill by
his speech, portion Of which fol-
lows:
Newspapers are great dissemina-
tors of information. The mammoth
metropolitan papers with their vast
circulation are splendid educators.
but after all ten persons read the
little country weekly where one
reads metropolitan paper.
Having once been country
: editor myself, J entertain most
kindly feeling for my old confreres.
, am willing to make affidavit that
the eleven months | spent editing a
rural journal were the most benefi-
cial OF my life to myself, perhaps
others. ! am proud to have be
longed to the editorial guild. am
unalterably opposed to anything
that will injure the country editor,
curtail his profits, circumscribe his
usefulness or place an additional
thorn in his pathway.
The rural editor--God bless
him!-is the most persistent of
teachers. Like charity as described
by St. Paul in the thirteenth chapter
of the first Corinthians, he suffereth
long and is kind. which cannot be
said of the men that got up this bill.
He 'envieth' not, in which he did
not resemble some people over on
this side of the House. He 'vaun-
teth not himself in which he is
differentiated from the leaders on
the other side of the big aisle. He
is no. puffed up, in which he rises
high above good many of us. He
does not behave himself unseemly:
seaketh not his own: is not easily
provoked
He is the pack horse of every
community, the promoter of every
laudable enterprise, the worst un-
derpaid laborer in the vineyard.
Counting his space as his capital. he
gives more to charity, his means
considered. than any other member
of society. He IL power in poll
tics, q pillar OF the church, leader
In the crusade for better morals
He Is eminentiy the friend Of
humanity.
Line upon line. paragraph upon
paragraph. day by day, he is EN-
balming ia cold type. theriacts from
which the Herodotus, the Tactius,
the Sismondi, or the Macau.ay Of
the future will write the history of
our times. (App,ause.) He joy
ously announces our advent into
this world, briefly records our up
risings and our down sittings, and
sorrowfully chronicles our exit from
this vale of tears.
AS acreator Of beauty, he double
discounts Nine. Aver, who under-
takes to increase feminine pulchri-
tude only in particular instances;
but the country editor. in the exer-
else of plenary power. impartially
beauties all woman whose names
appear in his columns. Laughter
and applause.) BY a touch of the
magican's wand he converts paste
into diamonds sparkling upon beau
tvs neck, and with a skill Of which
ancient and ambitious alchemists
oaly dreamed. and with politeness
which Chesterfield might have envied
he transmutes brass trinkets into
jewelfy Of purest gold. when they
appear as ornaments of the family
of his subscriber.
He is the greatest and most
ingenious of manufacturers, for.
while other manufacturers produce
only perishable stuffs, he manufac-
lures statesmen out of raw mater
ial. (Laughter.) In this laudable
industry no Dingley bill can protect
him. and he must ex-necessate work
in competition with the pauper manu-
facturers of Europe.
He is
To Our virtues very kind
And to our faults little blind.
I'VE are all more or less, general
ly more, his handiwork; and it does
not become the creature to injure
the business Of his creator. With.
out his ingenious. generous and en-
thusiastic labors, most of US would
never have been here; and when he
tires Of us, we will retire to private
life. amid rural scenes propitious foi
secret meditation and silent prayer
(Laughter) Working night anO
day during the campaign, otter
without money and price. when the
election is over. the victory won and
the loaves and fishes. now vulgarly
called pie. are to be distributed
by some strange lapse of the human
memory. he is generally forgotten
Horace Greeley was certainl,
one of the greatest editors the
world ever saw. His letter to Will
lam H. Seward in 1854, announcing
the dissolution of the political firm
of Seward, Weed. and Greeley, b,
the withdrawal Of the junior par
Al a..