Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-05-26

newspapers in our cities-towns OF
over four hundred thousand-aggre-
gates something over eleven millions.
The other daily newspapers in the
country circulate more than twelve
millions, and the weeklies circulate
twenty millions more, and most of
these Weeklies are printed in our
small country towns. We have, there
! fore, newspaper circulation OF nearly
thirty-four millions outside of our
great cities, and only eleven millions
in the great cities At least so says !
our latest census bulletin. And the
money we country editors have invest
ed is proportionately larger than that
our city brethren have invested.
| But the beauty and the joy OF our |
papers and their little worlds is that
we who live in the country towns |
know our own heroes. Who knows |
Murphy in New York? Only a few |
Yet in Emporia we all know Tom !
|O'Connor-and love him. Who knows
Morgan in New York? One man in a
hundred thousand. Yet in Emporia |
who does not know George Newman,
our banker and merchant prince?
Boston people pick up their morning
papers and read with shuddering hor-
ror of the crimes of their daily villain,
yet read without that fine thrill that
we have when we hear that AL Lu-
dorph is in Jail again in Emporia. For
we all know Al; we've ridden in his
hack a score of times. And we take
up our paper with the story OF his
frailties as readers who begin the mar
rative of an old friends adventures.
The society columns of our city pa
pers set down the goings and comings,
the marriage and the deaths Of peo-
pie who are known only by name;
there are gowns realized only in
dreams; there are social functions
that seem staged upon distant stars.
Yet you city people read of these things
with avf1ity. But our social activities,
chronicled in our country papers, tell
of real people, whose hired girls are
sisters to our hired girls, and so we
know the secrets of their hearts. We
know a gown when it appears three
seasons in our social columns, dis
guised by its trimmings and its cover
ings, and it becomes a familiar friend.
: To read of it recalls other and happier
days. And when we read of funeral
in our country newspapers, we do not
visualize it as mere church fight to
see the grand persons in their solemn
array on dress parade. A funeral no
tice to us country readers means some
thing human and sad. Between the
formal lines that tell of the mournful
affair we read many a tragedy; we
know the heartache; we realize the
restitution that must come when the
i flowers are taken to the hospital;
/. we know what insurance the
I dead man carried, and how it
must be stretched to meet the
S needs. We can see the quiet lines on
each side of the walk leading from
, the house of sorrow after the services
the men on one side, the women on
: the other-waiting to see the mourning
e families, and to be seen by them; We
:, may smile through our tears at the
e uncOngenial pall-bearers and wonder
= what common ground of mirth they
e will find to till on the way back from
r the cemetery In lists of wedding
guests in our papers we know just
e what poor kin was remembered, and
s what was snubbed. We know when
!, ] we read of a bankruptcy just which
= member of the firm or family brought
: it on, by extravaganza or sloth. We
/ read that the wife of the hardware
e merchant is in Kansas City, and we
: know the feelings of the drygoods
e merchant who reads it and sees his
: own silks ignored So when we see a
= new kind of lawn mower on the dry
,. goods merchants lawn, we don't blame
| h To ha oil for
n it.
Y Our papers, our little country pa
t pers, seem drab and miserably provin-
t cial to strangers; yet we who read
), them read in their lines the sweet, in
: innate story of life. And all these
= touches of nature make US wondrous
n kind. 1t is the country newspaper,
: bringing together daily the threads of
r the towns life, weaving them into
n something rich and strange, and set
i ting the pattern as it weaves, directing
h the loom, and giving the cloth its color
d by mixing the lives of all the people
# in its color pot-it is this country
: newspaper that reveals US to ourselves,
i that keeps our country hearts quick
T and our country minds open and our
a country faith strong
); When the girl at the glove counter
r marries the boy in the wholesale house,
Y the news of their wedding is good for a
. 4O-line wedding notice, and the 40 lines
It in the country paper give them self
d respect. When in due course we know
r that their baby is 12-pounder, named
e Grover or Theodore or Woodrow, we
have that neighborlv feeling that
breeds the real democracy. When we
read OF death in that home we can
a mourn with them that mourn. When
n we see them moving upward in the
v world, into firm, and out toward the
country club neighborhood, we rejoice
with them that rejoice. Therefore,
men and brethren, when you are rid