The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1922-12-14
Tendencies in Modern Journalism

EXTRACTS from address by r. r
Kilroy, editor of the anaconda Stand
ard, before the University club OF
Butte, on December -
In an age of change no metamor-
phosis is more remarkable than that
which has taken place in the news
paper during the past two decades.
There was a time when Dana of the
New York Sun, Watterson of the
Louisville Courier Journal, Peter Fin
LEY Dunn of the Chicago Journal
Judge Goodwin of the Salt Lake Tri-
bune, Harvey Scott of the Portland
Oregonian and a score of others scat
tered across the continent commanded
the ear of America. Their editorial
pages were recognized sources of in
telligent thought and opinion. They
were the savants whose wisdom was
accepted as infallible as that uttered
by the oracle at Delphi; with a stroke
of a pen they swayed the popular
mind; they made and unmade states
men over night.
Today these men and their success
sors have passed from their place of
power and we find instead Sidney
Smith George McManus Bud Fisher
and all that tribe. Why the change?
IT. the Olden days Nicholas RomauOtf
sat steady on his throne; if a Hohen
zollern took snuff all Germany sneez-
ed; sparkling Bergundy was a popular
drink at the White House dinners, and
you could buy a stack of reds at the
old Combination, lose them during the
lunch hour and go back to the bank
a respected and respectable member Of
Butte society.
1t wasn't Andy Gump or Mutt and
Jeff or Jigs who put the jazz in jour
nalism. 1t was the great American
public which wants what it wants
when it wants it and, judging by re-
cent political events, isn't sure from |
year to year just what it wants.
Twenty years ago-many of you are
Did enough to remember-the only We
hicle for current comment whether /
social economic, political, scientific or
literary was the editorial page of the
newspaper The lawyer found here
'at criticism on a decision hot from
he supreme court oven; the physician
cad an intelligent analysis of the lat
st discovery or achievement in med
cal science; the engineer was here 4:
lrst apprised of some triumph in his I
rt by the editors intelligent descrip-
ion. I
The headlines, the pictures. the syn
psis of the days tragedy the base I
all score, the football results and the 7
ltest bon mot of the Senegambian s
Tho put Carpenter in dry dock d
lese are what the large proportion of t
&c public Of this day and age wants Ia
] its newspaper. n
In vain does the editorial writer turn
neat phrase. present in rhythmic Ii
letoric an unanswerable truth, or "
eftly clinch an argument. It isn't G
ping to catch the modern readers b
re half as readily as the custard pie h
hich crowns the battered head of o.
ggs, the cuspidor which ricochets Ii
ON the dome of little Jeff or the re- HI
rms which show dear old Andy hi
imp counted out by that obnoxious la
t successful villain Sylvester Skink. 81
I happened to lunch with Sidney Of
NTH, the creator of Andy Gump the
y he signed a contract with the Chi ed
go Tribune at a salary better than ye
uble that of the president of the te
lifted States and couldn't help ar
mixing of the hundreds of scholarly re
lined, skillful writers-literary me-
anics, IL you will-grinding their ge
es away in newspaper offices fol- mi
aries to which in comparison Sid ole
y Smiths would be a colossal for ha
,e. no
But it isn't journalism alone that err
fers in the frivol and froth of mod thu
life. All forms Of literary compo- fun
on must meet the taste of the lat
der What chance has Dickens to- all
? against Joseph Hergesheimer? pa
ackerav takes a back seat for Oc- be
ius Cohen and George Eliot lies low
t covered on the shelf while made "F
selle pores through the latest effu-
/ of Mary Roberts Rhinehart. An
he jitney has suppIanted the old