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Show LOCAL NEWSPAPAR A NECESSITY There are three most potent factors fact-ors in the life, growth and development develop-ment of a community. They are, the Church, the school and the Newspaper, News-paper, and this is in the order of importance. im-portance. It la not our purpose here to eulogize. I We will pass over the first two of these factors, and perhaps treat of 'them later. If the churches were '.thrown out of thi3 community no ' selfrespectlng person could stay here. With all our material prosperity pros-perity we would soon drop hack to ' conditions such as ancient Rome witnessed. And if the schools were discontinued material progress also j would stop and we would sink beyond be-yond redemption. The church is a public institution and is supported by voluntary contributions. con-tributions. The school is also a public pub-lic institution and is supported by ( the state through taxation. The newspaper is a semi-public institu-tion institu-tion but receives no public support ; but has to earn its livelihood thru ' the regular channels of competive business. It is of the newspaper that we ,: wish now to speak. j If all of the newspapers and other periodicals were discontinued today the effect would be somewhat similar to a mghty plau,ge sweeping over the land. Darkness would creep in, the darkness of intellect, as people would remain in ignorance of the happenings in localities only a few 'miles distant. Business would slow down and telegraph commmunica-tion commmunica-tion would soon fall into disuse because be-cause no stimulus would come from 'newspaperdom. Even the postof-'fice postof-'fice receipts would dwindle for much of its revenue comes in direct response respon-se to advertising. The newspaper is the third great agency in the advancement of .civilization, .civil-ization, yet it is underestimated more often than the first two. It is too often treated as merely a business proposition. Few people seem ever to get the vision that the true-blue editor has of using business to ad- rvanca the Interests of a whole community. com-munity. The preacher has one job to preach; the teacher has one job to teach; but the editor, if he he be true, has a triple job, and that is to preach, and teach, arid hardest of all and with it all, too, to meet his weekly pay roll, pay the other costs of production, and try to get a 'comfortable living and we all have ,a right to that. 1 Omitting the church and the school we can make claim without exaggeration, exag-geration, that a true newspaper is of more Teal- importance, does more good with less money, gives more (for less money than any other business busi-ness in a community. It is true that some will point to large industrial 'plants that flourish in the community commun-ity and say that those concerns with their big pay rolls form the life of hte commiunlty. Tnis we answer i only apparently so. This appears to be so from a superficial materialistic 'survey of the field. But the life is more than food and the body than clothing. The big industrial plants deal in wealth, that is produced by labor; but the newspaper besides dealing in news, deals in bigger things THOUGHTS. "Our thoughts are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew 'makes thousands, perhaps millions, ,upon a thought, produces that which think." V. W. Bradbury, in Union (N. Y.) News-Dispatch. |