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Show EDITORIAL: Why 'The Pulse Of The Public' Dossirl Always Beat Every week the staff of the Standard does its darndest to present a stimulating and controversial con-troversial editorial pa&e. The reason is quite simple: The editorial edi-torial page is wheie most of the opionionative and interpretative writing finds itself in an objective ob-jective newspaper. Neither has a place in the strictly objective news story. On the editorial page, editorial editor-ial writers have a chance to air their views and information on every topic under the sun. The subject of comment may be a local election, the Russians, John L. Lewis; or a treatise on the monetary system of ancient Babylonia. But all editorials aren't serious. ser-ious. Some just tell a little story or lightly comment upon something some-thing trivial. In the Standard we include a smattering of the light and the heavy. There are editorials by the editor, by George Peck and his syndicate of writers, and by the readers. Recently we started Billy Rose's column, 'Broadway and Main Street,' the object being to add a natural-born natural-born story-teller and light commentator com-mentator to the page. Then there is a little, frivolous piece called 'Passing Comment On Trivialities.' Triviali-ties.' In other words, we believe the idea behind the editorial page is to present opinionative and interpretative articles, and to make the serious material palatable pal-atable by including, in addition, humorous, or at least light stuff. Nothing is more monotonous than never-ending steam-blowing on serious topics. If anyone is interested in knowing where the reader gets a chance to tell what he thinks, it's in 'The Pulse Of The Public' Pub-lic' column. No doubt about it, next to the political cartoon and it is only glanced at the letters to the editor column, re-gardlesss re-gardlesss of what it is called, is the most-read feature on the editorial page. It is read because the average citizen is interested in knowing what his neighbor is thinking. This is the logic behind all columns of this type: to give the reader a chance to pass valuable val-uable information and comment along to others, and to tell what ha is thinking and doing. A newspaper staff, naturally, fs interested in-terested in what its readers are thinking or doing, and is, consequently, con-sequently, disappointed when the people can't find time occasionally oc-casionally to sit down and write what's up. The 'Pulse Of The Public' column is set aside for the Fead-, Fead-, ers. Here is the best place in the Standard for a reader to tell what he's agin, compliment a friend or the city council for some meritorious act, or tell his fellow-readers about a matter he thinks they oug'hta know. Whether the column is alive or not depends on the reader. He can make it breathe fire if he wants to. All right, readers, let's near from you. We would like to print three or four letters each week. Naturally we can't make any definite promises, as we have to work on a week-to-week basis; and there's always the problem of space to consider. consid-er. But we'll do our best if you do yours. So why not help us keep 'The Pulse of the Public' beating? |