The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-05-06
SUNDAY BY WIRE.
Missouri Editors Hear Speech
Over the Telephone.
Talked to Convention 1876 Miles
From Kansas City.
EULOGIzES The NEWSPAPERS
Post Graduate Course for Pub
lie School Students.
CartOOniStS and Feature Writ
ers in the Front Rank.
EULOGIzES THE NEWSPAPERS

Kansas City, Mo, May 6.-Billy
Sunday, seated at a telephone in Judge
Wallace's home, his residence here
during his meetings, talked Friday
night over the Bell long distance lines
TO the members of the Missouri State
Press association and the School of
Journalism gathered at a banquet at
Columbia, Mo-, 1876 miles away.
About 800 were at the banquet. VIII
liam Jennings Bryan. James Schermer-
horn and Arthur Brisbane were
among the guests.
Sundays address follows:
Gentlemen. I am not insensible of
the honor you confer upon me by this
opportunity to address the editors OF
Missouri and their guests and l ex-
press my deep appreciation now. l
have one advantage over you: You
dip your pen in ink, pen a scathing
denunciation of this or that set it in
type, your subscriber reads. gets
peeved at the first paragraph, tears
up the rest and builds his kitchen fire.
While you must listen until 1 am
through.
To emphasize as strongly as need be
the Responsibility of the American
Newspaper" is task of supreme
significance. Next to the church its
responsibility to the community is
greatest. I cherish personally and 1
fight for publicly the efforts of great
editors who in the modern newspa-
per strive with unequalled courage and
heroism for public service, for better
citizenship, for fairness of speech. and
for accuracy.
Marvel of the Age.
The development of the modern
newspaper is one of the marvels of the
age. Time was not far back when one
of the duties of the editor was to dish
out over a counter the pills and nos
trums he advertised in his columns,
This is one of the reasons perhaps why
pernicious patent medicine ads hung
en- so long. In the weekly laboriously
printed on the Washington hand
presses of frontier days and the mar
Velous product of editorial skill and
mechanical ability of today there is
little similarity. The annual increase
in newspaper readers all over the
country and particularly in the west
is legion. 1t constitutes the sole edu-
cational influence in the lives of hun
dreds of thousands 1t provides the
only postgraduate courses for thou
sands of public school students.
L hate a straddler, a trimmer, two
faced, sails set to catch any breeze,
tempOriZers, equivOcatorS, diplomacy,
tact that is nothing but deceit-in man
or newspaper. If to be independent
means to be neutral in everything I'm
agIn that sheet and it's worth no more
to the community than the bundle of
newspaper that's red-hot for some
thing or other. I like to see it boil
and sizzle from the volume number
to the last 3-m dash. 1 like for a
paper to present the various logical
viewpoints of disputed questions but
after that 1 want to see the backbone
of the boss come to the front with a
positive opinion one way or the other.
Even if he's against me 1 love him
better than the spineless mushy molly
coddle whose views are no more posi-
tive than a weathervane is steady in
a Kansas cyclone So 1 like a ram
pant Republican organ and a dogmatic
Democratic sheet or a rip-snortins
prohibition paper.
Not often in eulogies of the modern
newspaper have 1 seen comment on a
phase that has delighted me. 1t seems
to me that during the last ten years
an increasing amount of sunshine has
crept into the columns. I have the
greatest admiration for the column
and feature conductor and the car
toonist who day by day bring smile.
and good cheer to the minds of mil
lions. / place them in the front ranl
of the worthieSt citizenship of the ma
ton. They contribute generously t.
making the daily a daily magazine
The development of American humol
through this agency has been so keer
and so swift and so new that we won
der why we laughted at FaIstaff ant
Puck.