Show THE COUNTRY NEWSPAPER our papers our little c cc untidy p papers seem drab and miser miserably ably provincial to strangers yet we ve who read them read in their lines the sweet intimate story of life and all these touches of nature nature make us wondrous kind it is the country newspaper bringing I 1 together daily the threads of the towns life weaving them into something rich and strange and setting the pattern as it weaves directing tile the loom and giving the cloth its color by mixing the lives of all tile the people in its c olor color pot it is this country newspaper that reveals us its to ourselves that th t keeps our country hearts quick and our country minds open opan and our country fair strong when the girl at the glove counter marries tile ine boy in the wholesale house the news of their wedding is good fora for a forty line wedding notice a avi antl the forty t y lines in the country paper give them self respect when in due course we know that their baby is a twelve nam eded grover or theodore or woodrow we have that neighborly feeling that breeds the real dern democracy when we read of death in that home we can mourn with them that mourn when we nye see them moving moving upward in the world into a firm and out toward the country club neighborhood bo we v rejoice with them that rejoice therefore men and brethren when you are riding through this thi vale of tears upon the california limited and by chance pid pick up the little country newspaper with its meager telegraph service of three or four thoa thousand asand words or at best fifteen or twenty thousand when we see its array of countryside items its interminable local stories its tiresome editorials on the waterworks water works tile the schools the street railroad the crops and the city printing dont throw down the contemptible little rag with the verdict that there is nothing in it but know this and know it well if you could take the clay from your eyes hild and read the lit little tle paper as it is written you would find all of gods beautiful sorrowing struggling aspiring world in it and what you saw would make you touch the little paper with reverent hands william lilliarn allen alien white in harpers magazine for may |