The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-02-17
MAKING A NEWSPAPER.
Success and Endurance Depend Upon
Character Rather than Money.


fortune in business walks, plunged
headlong into the maelstrom of poll
tics and secured seat in the United
States senate as Democrat. He
was one of his party who injected
t'perfdy and dishonor" into the Will
son tariff Of 1894 after which he was
retired from official preferment of
his, own party in his own State. Mr..
Smith, to promote his political for
tunes, established or secured control
of a newspaper in his home town Of
Newark and poured his millions into
the business end of his journalistic
property without stint and with the
result that he is now making a prog
ress through financial bankruptcy.
Our Uncle Isaac Stephenson, of
Wisconsin, another millionaire and a
delightful old chap, waded into poll
tics up to the neck and he, too, es-
tablished a newspaper and fed it
ducats by the cart load. AS a jour
nalistic enterprise it was failure,
and it would have emptied Uncle
Ike's purse, too, had it not been like
that of Fortunatus and without bot
tom.
There are great many foolish
folk who will tell you that money is
all that is necessary to make a sue
cessful newspaper. They hold that
money may command brains, as it
will, and that the two, working to-
gether, make the great and powerful
journal. But there is another quail
ity, the lack. of which makes your
newspaper as impotent as tool with
out a handle, and that quality is
character, and without character no
newspaper an be influential.
Take the case of William R.
Hearst's yallers-money without
limit and brains powerful and bril-
liant, a circulation reaching into the
hundred thousands, and yet the in
fluence of the Hearst papers on pub
lie affairs is absolutely nil. 1t was
not the opposition of Bryan at Balti-
more that defeated Champ Clark;
it was the support of Hearst, and
Woodrow Wilson would have been
nominated in 1912 if Bryan had been
as loyal to Clark as Bill Stone, OF
missouri, or Bill Haldeman, of Ken
tucky.
OF course brains and money are
necessary, but the chief and indis-
pensable Ingredient of a newspaper
is character. There is such a paper
In my old home town of Louisville,
KY. I mean the Louisville Post, over
the columns of which Richard w.
Knott is autocrat. There are thou
sands Of newspaper readers in Ken
lucky who cuss the Post-at rare in
tervals I have cussed it myself, but
every newspaper reader in Kentucky
knows that if there is any live wire
in the field of public affairs, Dick
Knott reaches out and grabs it ut
terly regardless Of consequences.
That is character. That is what
makes paper fit to live and fit to
read.
Knott is of Scotch blood with all
the admirable traits Of that wonder
full people. 1t would be possible to
destroy him, perhaps, but he will
never be conquered.
seNot even to save the rare cargo of
Truth
Would be cast out a part to the
storm
Goebelism might have succeeded
in making Kentucky despotism II
it had not been for the Louisville
Post. Nominated by the police force
of the unspeakably corrupt city of
Louisville, Goebel would have been
elected governor and master Of the
State had Knott and his newspaper
cravenly submitted to the infancy of
the nomination. Not in the history
of American journalism is recorded
a greater achievement than that of
the Louisville Post when it defeat
ed William Goebel for governor of a
commonwealth that has freedom for
the prerogative of it's citizens.
But that was not the only victory
achieved by the Louisville Post.
About that time Louisville was in the
clutch of the most unscrupulous, the
most reckless, the most depraved, the
most vicious and the most odious
gang even American municipal in
fanny can show. Elections were
farces, graft and all kindred knavery
stalked everywhere, gambling and
robbery were open and notorious,
violence and murder defied the law.
And then it was that Dick Knott
ontorod info the hattie for law and