Illinois newspaper directory. History of the Illinois press association

Illinois Newspaper Directory and Historythings incident to the cruder methods of that time, which we today know little about.It was the day of small things, pecuniarily. It was like running a high church at crossroads—theresponses to the decalogue were more numerous than dollars to the offertory.People 'took' the paper for the 'cause,' but they seldom paid a dollar for 'principle,' itthey could help it, or green cord wood in stinted measure, or coon skins caught in thewrong season, would answer the purpose."But I need not dwell on these troubles of the earlier printer. Has the advancementin arts and civilization brought relief? No, it has shifted the burden from the shouldersto the head. The average country editor of 1845 advertised his honorable calling by aconspicuous display of a pair of scissors from his vest pocket, much after the fashion ofnewly initiated greenhorns today, who display their Masonic or their Odd Fellows'jewelry on the lapels of their vests or coats. Confessedly, scissors and paste, in liberaladmixture with Wisner's Cough Syrup and Jones's Hair Dye, was to a majority of thelocal profession a great and blessed relief from the toil of day and night type setting,press-work, dunning delinquents, dodging duns, 'working for the party,' and dancingto the slow and doleful music of an empty flour barrel. A change of these conditionsbrings our modern editor face to face with an amount of local and general writing, andof preparation for it, in methods only known to a man who is triple-minded and omnipresent;face to face with from six to a dozen solid columns of country correspondence,society news and personals, and kindred adjuncts to our modern art. The forty-years-agoeditor, who would encounter a job like this, would fairly go crazy with astonishmentand grief. The editor of forty years ago could go somewhere, if he had the money, orsome chalk on his hat; but the highly-privileged editor of today goes at the peril ofincomplete work in inexperienced hands, if indeed he does not encounter on his returnat least one suit for libel, resulting from an 'innocent joke' by some facetious correspondent."But lest I may seem to speak slightingly of the ability and the methods of ourbrethren who were pioneers in this vale of tears, let me say that our times have developedno finer writers than the noble souls who wrought on the leading column thirty andforty years ago. I have mentioned the names of some who were forcible and brilliantwriters at that period. I can well remember others. In a majority of cases these menwrote well, because they were posted in current affairs and it was their pleasure—if nota recreation—to keep abreast with the best thought of the times. Indeed, brethren,how many of us, with our accumulating duties in the one routine of gathering, arranging,sifting and writing local current news, have the needed time in which to give adiligent study to any one prominent question now before the public, or likely to be?"Our honored predecessors wrote strongly and well, as the musty files of the pastfully show. They were men of superior information, and they did not adulterate theirmother Anglo-Saxon with tinseled substitutes for words to express their meaning. Theywere plain men and honest. And when, at the last day, the recording angel casts thesummary of accounts, the chiefest sins of the pioneers of the press will be forgiven inthe light of the good they have wrought in the world. May our last end, and ourreward as well, be like theirs."64