Arizona republican., 1918-09-07

daily newspaper. and frequently two dailies, and in the West every town of five hundred people has it's weekly | newspaper, With us the newspaper crystallizes public sentiment, promotes local pride, and tries to be the social and intellectual center of the commun- ity. A community of twenty five thoJs- and without a newspaper-and we found that this community never had supported newspaper-was unthink- able to us in terms of any civilization that we knew. How do they know about the births, deaths, and mar riages. we asked: and they told us that the churches recorded those things. How do they know about the scandal? ? And we remembered that scandal was older than the press; it was the father of the press, as the devil is the father of lies. How do they know how to vote | And they told us that newspapers hin- dered rather than helped that function. How did they record local history? And | in our hearts, we knew who had re- corded so much local history. that most of it is not worth recording and that | tradition takes care of what is left. | But how did they manage to create d town spirit, to vote the bonds for the city waterworks. to establish the public | library, to enforce the laws, to organ ize the Chamber of Commerce, to get up subscriptions for this that or the other public benevolence? And men shook their heads and said Water has run down hill many years; perhaps il will keep on running. even without a newspaper.
 1 The French Press
 It was a sad blow to Henry and me l who thought our calling was torch bearer of civilization. Indeed, one may digress and say that we found the whole estate of the press in France rather disenchanting. For advertisins is not regarded as entirely "ethfcar ir France. The big stores sometimes dc not advertise at all: because people look with the same suspicion on adver- Using drygoods and clothing mer- chants as we in America look upon ad- vertising lawyers and doctors. Sc newspapers too often have to sell theil editorial opinions, and the press has small influence in France. compared with the influence of the press in wna' we call the Anglo Saxon countries.
 But in that French village of twenty five thousand people without news paper we found a civilization that con- pared 1dNOraDly with the ClNiilZdtiOH II any American town. While the tire Va. going on, it developed that cog iat slipped in the transgression of the cal -or something of the sort, so we wer' laid up for an hour, and we piled ou of our seats and took in the town.
 Book Stores
 We found four good bookstores ther' rather larger than our bookstores a home. We found two or three big 70 operative stores largely patronized ), industrial workers. .and farmers, an' they were better stores by half thai any CO., operative stores we had seen il | America. For with us the co-operatir' store is generally sad failure. Gu
 farmers talk big about CO., operation but they sneak around and patroniz
 the stores that offer the best bargains and our industrial workers haven't be gun to realize how CO., operative buyini will help them. We found no big stores in the American sense. but we foun
 many bright. well-kept shops. In ,lec lirical supplies we found the show win dows up to the American average