Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1914-05-08
Domin.ne. Of tn. Evening Newspaper


In the passing Of the Picayune.
which for seventy-years has been
daily visitor into thousands IT Louisi-
ness, as there must be whenever an
old and respected institution disap-
pears.
But tragic as Is the event, nothing
could stay its inevitability except the
decline and disappearance Of the
younger and more virile competitor,
which has absorbed 1t.
Two fundamental causes lie at the
bottom of the tragedy. One 10 the
logical growth Of the afternoon news.
paper. The other is the stern and i'm
mutable fact that New Orleans could
not-as no other city Of its Size does
support four cheap sevsn-day papers.
When last September the two morn
ing papers, reduced to an inferior po-
sition in circulation and advertising
patronage in a field in which they
were formerly supreme. cut their
prices to level with the afternoon pa
pers. at a cost of 500, 900 each in gross
income. it became merely a question
Of time, under the law Of the survival
Of the fittest, when one or the other
must play the star role in this trag-
edy.
The man in the street, having no
knowledge of the business, finds 1t Diff
ticult to understand the changing con-
ditions which have brought the Plea
yune to the end of it's tether. What has
occurred is however. not local to New
Orleans. The Picayune is the third
great and long established morning
newspaper which in few weeks has
gasped and died.
The San Francisco Call was one of
the Oldest. one of the most prominent
and long one of the most prosperous
morning newspapers in the country.
But the other day the news dispatches
told of its suspension and consolidation
with one of the afternoon papers of
San Francisco. A little later the Den
yer Republican, for many years one of
the most influential morning newspa-
pers in the west, was absorbed by the
Rocky Mountain News, leaving only
one morning as against two afternoon
papers in the Colorado metropolis. A
fortnigh: ago the Chicago nter-Ocean,
one Of the most widely known morning
papers IN America, passed into the
hands o: a receiver and its property
since ha~ been ordered sold. It is the
fourth great Chicago morning paper
TO go on the rocks in a comparatively
few years.
There is a definite limit to the ca
pacity Of community to support
newspapers. and these four recent
newspaper tragedies are significant Of
the narrowing field OF the morning pa
per.
When railroad mileage was COM
paratively small and the means of
communication meager. the morning
paper dominated the field. Afternoon
papers were a slow development and
their circulation. advertising and in
tluence were relatively small. But the
afternoon newspaper has come to be
the more natural newspaper. 1t gives
the worlds news. local, domestic and
foreign, on the day it occurs-not the
day after. 1t goes into the homes
when the days work Is ending and
when there is time to read its contents,
and SO it becomes the more valuable
medium OF the advertiser from whom
it draws its likelihood.
With increasing prosperity and pres
tige the afternoon paper has, more
over, become the brighter and better
paper-not only mirror of the days
news, but compendium of features
that appeal to every element of the
family group.
Hence it is that the afternoon pa
pers are no longer the subordinate but
the dominant factors In every great
American city, with larger circulation
and larger advertising patronage than
the morning papers; and 50, whenever
the limit to the capacity CT a COM
munity to support newspapers is
reached. as recently it was reached in
San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and
New Orleans, it Is the morning news
paper which is forced to give up the
struggle.
1t must not be understood that what
we have said assumes time will ever
come that there will be no field for the
morning newspaper. There always
will be in every city; and we shall
always have great and prosperous
morning papers as we shall have more
and more great and prosperous after
noon papers. But whenever a city is
overpapered. the surplus will usual
ly be found in the morning field, from
the perfectly natural fact that the