Year: 1874



 cencies and Indecencies of Journal lism

 How to Run Nevspaper-etc., etc.

 We make the following extracts from the orat1on of Col. G. A. Pierce, of the Chicago Inter- Ocean, before the North ern Indiana Editorial Association, at La Porte

 Newspapers are the elders and dea- cons of society. Some of them may be very poor elders and very fallible dea- cons, but as class they do their work tolerable we'll, and punish heretics pretty thoroughly.

 Sometimes this vigilance degenerates into persecution, and serves the per- sonal spite of the individual instead of the common interests of the body polite, and then it is the deacon or the elder who should be bastinadoed instead of the member. An editor should never carry his personal piques and grievances into his newspaper. He may hold all the stock of an influential journal, and have the legal right to make it the ve- hicle of his malice and prejudice, but, morally, he has no such right. An edi- tor who opposes 8 principle because in doing so he can spite and defeat Jones or Johnson, whom he does not like, is as bad as the grocer who puts gunpow- der in his tobacco to blow up Smith, and in so doing shakes up the whole community. We might say, also, that the man who admits into the column of his paper articles that debauch public sentiment, because such articles extend his circulation, is as bad as the grocer who puts copperas in his tea to make it bright and salable, thus adding to his wealth at the expense of his customers stomach.

 A newspaper is a species of property Tn which the interest is one of mutuali- ty. If it is valuable it is because the public buy it, and read it, and advertise in it. The public being sort of junior partner, therefore, should not be out ragged simply because the balance of power is on the side of the principal stockholder.

 Some people wonder at the influence of the press. They ask why should Browns opinions in print be of so much more consequence than Browns opin- ions expressed by word of mouth or Jones' opinions of book, as 8 critic, be worth more than Jones' opinions ex- pressed as private gentleman.

 Now, in the first place, it is not necessary that man should be a French cook in order to give an opinion of pudding, or to be thoroughbred colt himself to judge of the speed of Dexter. In the second place, journalism isl profession, as law, theology or medicine are professions. Other things being equal, I take the advice of my lawyer, doctor or minister, and swallow the whale, the doctrine of precedents, or the theory of liver complaint with out question. If do not agree with professionals on some points, that does to speak intelligently on general ques- tions relating to their business. 1t is precisely SO with journalism. And it will be noted that, as general thing, newspapers agree in literary criticism at least as frequently as divines do on the doctrines of the trinity, or doctors on the causes of spinal meningitis. The opinions of great newspaper repre- sent the views of more than one first, those of the person who writes the speciality. Next, of those who pass upon and approve the article, some times after much consultation and an

  nent ability in that direction.

 A man is more careful of what he writes than what he speaks. One may portant the other may follow him to all eternity. The editor therefore rep resents not only his own most carefully others whose lives are devoted to secur- Sr,< nfoSr To for rect opinions on all subjects thus dis cussed. +@ ~ '.~.'

 It is impossible to realize in it's full not care how strong or independent a man be how set in his ways how full of mulish obstinacy; he cannot read gradually controlled by it. z"

 Their are men who doubt their abil- ity to run saw-mill or cider press, to cessfully, but have yet to see the man who did not deem himself competent to conduct newspaper creditably. He sees so many things in the columns of his paper that he thinks of no interest to anybody: He would have nothing that did not meet universal approval.

  though, I trust, with that humanity which very little experience is sufi- cient to give, you will pardon me, per haps, for giving some of my own ideas about this subject. t-

 One of the most valuable auxilaries to good newspaper is an excellent news editor, one who has the happy faculty of making popular selections. l know of 8 newspaper in Indiana for whose editorial or local would not say much, and yet whese selections are so admirable that it has grown to be one of the most prosperous and interesting papers in the State. It requires genius for this sort of work. A man of one idea will never do. He will, if an anti quary, run to relics; if sentimentalist, to poetry and love 1; if a scientist, to evolution and the origin of life. But if he has happy combination of all these he will give you variety which is the spice of life and lends it all it's flavor.

 The type of so-called country jour- nalism, as it was known in earlier days, has well-nigh disappeared. Nearly every editor whom see before me is publishing what few years ago would have been regarded as 8 metropolitan newspaper. ln nearly everything save the earliest news, the newspapers of Northern Indiana are the equals of sim liar editions of the journals of the large cities. You no longer take your pay, and beg for it at that, in eggs, hoop poles, and tan-bark, but the subscriber pays his money in advance, feeling that he is getting more than an equivalent.

 How we'll we all remember the editor of few years ago, who was foreman, pressman, composition, and frequently devil combined, and who two days in the week rugged at his primitive press, with none but boy for help, and after his weary work was over, sat down with