The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1916-01-27
MANKIND HASEvER
CRAYED FOR NEWS

Charles R. Miller, editor of the New
York Times, spoke on Chow We Got
Our Newspaper" recently at the Park
Avenue Methodist church, in New
York.
off we are asked where we got our
newspapers, said Mr.. Miller "the
answer is that we got them from the
Divine command, Let there be light
It is certain that darkness would have
brooded on the face of the deep for all
time if it had not been for the news
papers or something like the newspa-
pers.
"The desire to know what is going
on is not a modern development. Back
in the tribal days primitive man had
the same desire for information as We
have today. He wanted to know the
result of the hunt, the position of the
enemy and the gossip current among
his fellow tribesmen. As civilization
advanced this want became more COM
plex. Paul, speaking ON Mars Hill, men-
toned the love of news common among
the Athenians.
Zone of the earliest methods for the
dissemination of news was the letter.
When Cicero was sent as governor 20
Cilicia he asked a friend to send him
the news of Rome. The friend employ
ed scribes, the reporters of that day,
TO gather the information and prepare
the letters. The man who wrote the
first letters reported everything from
the procedure of the senate to the re-
suit of the latest gladiatorial contest.
Cicero objected to his methods and
complained that the letters contained
items that he would not have bothered
with when at home. What he wanted,
he explained, was advance information
to keep him in touch with the political
movements of the time.
''volumes of news letters have come
down to us showing that the letter
writing continued through the Middle
ages. The church and the state both at
tempted to wipe out the custom. In
April, 1872, Pope Plus V. issued bull
against the letters. This was a few
months before the massacre on st. Bar
tholomew's Day. His successor issued
another bull against them in Septem-
Der, 1879, a few weeks after the mas
sacre, directing that writer's should be
condemned to the galleys. That was an
unpleasant age in which to be engaged
in the newspaper business.
| ''The first newspapers made their ap-
pearanee in Peking, but the west was
not far behind. About so B. G. the Ro-
man government began publishing an
official organ. This had to be written
| by hand, so few copies were issued.
This paper gave the general news and
was not much different from the news
papers of today.
"After the invention of the printing
press and movable type in the middle
Of the fifteenth century private news
letters were printed instead of written,
but the opposition of the church and
state prevented the appearance of reg
ular newspapers until the beginning of
the seventeenth century. A paper be-
gan to appear in Holland in 1926. In
1889 the first American paper began to
circulate in Boston Many of the pa
pers started as government organs
Civilization was delayed by the lack
of newspapers in the early days, Mr..
Miller thought, and he gave it as his
opinion that a free press probably
would have prevented the French rev.
olution, as the discussion of the trou-
bles of the people and of desirable re-
forms would have resulted in changed
conditions.
"Our newspapers, he said in con.
clusion, ''form a great reserve against
the growth of evils and at the same
time give the discontented a chance to
blow off steam,' an opportunity simi-
Ian to that given by the outbursts at
Cooper Union in this city and at Hyde
park in London. Where there is no
freedom of the press, as in Russia, we
instinctively look for revolution"