The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-31
From the Nashville Tennessean.

From the NaShV1lle IenneSSedn. t"VERY newspaper man entitled to the name, be he owner, editor, 0 manager or what-not, realizes that in making the paper the reporter IS a greater man than he. It is to be doubted If any really competent newspaper man, in whatever position of authority he may be, ever gets away from the feeling that he would rather be reporting news Many have tried to express their conception or the reporter, but probably no other has succeeded so well as the late William k. Nelson, owner of the Kansas City star. His appreciation was spoken some years ago, and is brought to mind now by be- ing printed on the back cover page of The Editorial. a magazine devoted to editorial thought. Here it is:
 1T sometimes think that providence is especially charged to watch over report CTS. There seems to be something in their work that brings. out the best there is in them.
 ..In a long career in which have dealt, h suppose, with hundreds of reporters, have almost never known one to be ralse to his trust. Opportunities innumerable come to them to be dishonest, to color news or suppress it. But it is the rarest thing in the world for them to be dis loyal. We constantly trust young men, little known fellows, with the gravest concerns. and our confidence as I said, lis almost never misplaced.
 t'It is a constant wonder to me that men are willing to make the adventure into newspaper work, until I recall that 1t Is the most fascinating work in the world, and that when man once gets the virus in his system he can't be beaten off with a club.
 'F'inally, the reporter must be, above all, a good citizen in all that the term l implies. He must be honest; he must be sincere; he must be against shams and frauds His heart must be right. Mere smartness will never give permanent suc- cess-~
 l Make it your ambition to be great re- porters, and everything else shall be add ed unto you"
 1 Every word of that tribute is true and yet, it tells only one side of the truth.
 Mr. Nelson, one of the greatest newspaper
 men of this generation. spoke of the fidel- 1 ity of the reporter to his paper, but there is another sort of fidelity just as inn portant, and more difficult. The reporter
 owes a duty to the public not less than | the duty he owes to his paper. There are constantly coming to him from that source condolences that must be kept in violate In fact, he stands in a relation | n1rhli r1o Iaac that of the minister or the physician. There is an opinion, more or less gem eral that he prints everything he knows. The fact is that the things he prints con- stitute only small part of the things he knows. It is often in his power to wreck homes, to destroy fortunes ano 10 plurge a community into confusion. The level -headedness and the right-hearted- ness of the reporter is all that stands between the individual and many forms of ruin. Of that phase of his fidelity, Rshop woodcock of Kentucky, when in Nashville about year ago, said It has been my policy ever since I entered
 the ministry to take every newspaper re-
 porter into my confidence, and in all those years not one of them has ever betrayed me-"
 l And all of those fine things those two
 great men have said of class of men
 who are obscure. whose personality is
 merged into the personality of the paper,
 who work for small pay and who receive
 no reward of thanks from the public. no
 one of whom is known to the public ex-
 cept as that little reporter who was
 around here Tn by are men who work