The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-04

meet in the country college or in the state university-and they do associate thus in the days of their youth-ttiere IS no reason why parents should strain themselves for the children; and they
 do not strain themselves. They relax
 In their automobiles, go to the movies, inhabit the summer boarding house in
 in the mountains or by the sea- and
 hoot at the vulgarity and stupidity of
 those strangers who appear to be rich and to be grunting and sweating and saving and intriguing for more money, but who really are only well-to- do middle-claSs people.
 In the American country town the race for great wealth has slackened down. The traveler who sees our half-dozen , great cities, who goes into our indus I trial centers, loafs about our pleasure resorts, sees much that is significantly
 American. But he misses much also if he fails to realize that there are in America tens of thousands of miles of asphalted streets arched by ems, bor-
 dered by green lawns, fringed with
 flowers marking the procession of the seasons, and that back from these streets stand millions of houses owned by their tenants-houses of from five to ten rooms, that cost from $250O to s25, ,OOO and that in these houses live a people neither rural nor urban, a people who have rural traditions and urban aspira- tions, and who are getting rather large return from civilization for the dollars they spend. Besides the civilization that comes to these people in pipes and on wires, they are buying civilization in the photograph, the moving picture, the automobile and the 50-cent reprint of last years fiction successes. The Wom- ans City Federation of Clubs is bring ing what civic beauty it can lug home 1 from Europe and the eastern cities; the l opportune death of the prominent citi- I zen is opening playgrounds and hospitals and parks; and the country colleges which has multiplied as the sands of | the sea, supplements the state schools of higher learning in the work of bring I ing to youth opportunities for more than the common school education.
 Now into this peculiar civiliza ton comes that curious institution, the coun- try newspaper. The country newspaper ! is the incarnation of the town spirit The newspaper is more than the voice | of the country-town spirit; the news paper is in measure the will of the | town, and the towns character is dis | played with sad realism in the town s 1 newspapers. A newspaper is an honest as it's town, is as intelligent as it's town, ! is kind as it's town, as brave as it's town. 1 And those curious phase of abnormal psychology often found in men and women, wherein dual or multiple per- | sonality speaks, are found often in com
 munities where many newspapers babble the many voices arising from the disor- l ganied spirits of the place. For 10 | years and more the tendency in the American country town has been toward fewer newspapers. That tendency seems to show that the spirit of these commu-
 mites is unifying. The disassociated personalities of the community-the wrangling bankers, the competing public | utilities, the vets and the drys, the | Guelfs and the Ghibellines in score of guises that make for discord in towns are slowly knitting into the spirit of the place. So one newspaper in the smaller communities-in communities under 15,000, l let us say-is becoming the town genus! | And in nose of the larger tQwns-so long as they are towns and not cities
 one newspaper is rising dominant and authoritative because it interprets and directs the community. The others are merely expressions of vagrant moods; | they are unhushed voices that are still uncorrelated, still unbrided in the com munitys heart.
 It is therefore the country newspaper, l the one that speaks for the town, that 1 guides and cherishes the town, that em- l bodies the distinctive spirit of the town,
 
 | in glory--it is that country newspaper, which takes it's color from a town and gives color back, that shall engage our l attention at present. That newspaper shall be our vision.
 1 Of old in this country the newspaper was a sort of poor relation in the com
 merce of place. The newspaper re-
 quired support, and the support was
 given, somewhat in charity, more or less
 in return for polite blackmail. and the rest for business reasons. The editor
 was a tolerated person He had to be i put on the chairmanship of some i'm l portant committee in every community enterprise to secure his help. In times of social or political emergency, he solo stock in his newspaper company C statesmen. That was In those primeva days before corporations were con
 trolled so the editors trust job presses ] never let the supply of stock fall behind ' the demand. Those good old days were
 the days when the editor with the