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Show Free Speech Essential For Freedom "Without free speech no search for truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of truth is useful; without free speech progress pro-gress is checked and the nations no longer march forward toward the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold thousand-fold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race." The above quotation from the work of Charles Bradlaugh is very apt in exemplifying a recent television broadcast by Elmo Roper Ro-per and Palmer Hoyt called "Press and the People". Mr. Hoyt, editor and publisher of the Denver Post said, "We have a little rule on the Denver Post which we try to abide by. Our rule is, print the news as honestly, fairly, and completely as we can comment on it by experienced ex-perienced and educated writers as adequately as we can and, three and most important, do not allow those two to meet in other words we don't want to ruo editorials in our news columns or headlines." In a paper the size of this weekly, it is impossible for all sources of straight matter not to meet in fact, most of us live together. Mr. Hoyt cited numerous times his paper took sides in a national election to be proven wrong; the switchboard would be deluged with calls of the "I told you so "nature, with consequent loss of readers. When adequate reporting would be given in later years to both political po-litical parties, the calls were at a minimum and circulation took a boost. Mr. Roper was asked the reasons rea-sons most people had for buying a newspaper. His reply."! think that the news column is the number num-ber one thing people buy a newspaper news-paper for. Then I think the number num-ber two varies. With some it is the financial news, others it is the editorials, others it is the comics. But news is the main reason rea-son for buying a newspaper.." Lyons, curator of Nieman Fellowships Fel-lowships at Harvard University, agreed with Roper that growing monopolies in the United States daily newspapers are limiting the channels of information to the public. They said it. could be. a possible danger to American de-ocracy. de-ocracy. If you have read this far, we ; would like to invite criticism on our news coverage, departments you would like to see enlarged, any bias you detect in our views, and any personal contribution you .might make to our personal columns. col-umns. This is YOUR newspaper. KHN |