Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1885 — The Value of Newspapers. [ARTICLE]

The Value of Newspapers.

A late unamimous decision of the lowa Supreme Court affirms the constitutionalty of the u6w prohibition laws in that state, and of the provisions for their enforcement. Under the sweeping provisions of these laws it would seem that the prohibition principle, was to have a chance tenprove its practicability, under the most favorable circumstances. Gov. Gray has nominated Maurice Thompson, of Crawfordsville to be State Geologist, in place of Prof. Collett. Mr. Thompson is a right skillful man in shooting birds and other wild game with the old fashioned weapons, bows and arrows, and writes very interesting accounts of his exploits in that line; but there is no evidence, extant, other than his pwn word, that he knows anything in partic. ular about geology.

Although Harper’s Weekly, the great organ of the Mugwump?, managed to swallow the appointment of Tweed’s old, coadjutor Manning, as Secretary.©! the Treasury, with a tolerably good grace, the appointment of the machine politician and manipulator of ballot boxes, Higgins, to the responsible position of Appointment Clerk, in the Treasury Department, causes it to make a very wry face indeed. The Weekly well says that: “The appointment is a distinct violation of the principles to which the administration is pledged.”

The proposition to pass a law requiring the effects of stimulants and narcotics upon the human system to be taught in the, public schools, has been knocked m the head several times during the present session of the legislature, but has been as often revived. It received its final quietus, however in, the Senate, last Thursday, that body voting to indefinitely postpone by a vote of twenty-two to twenty. As has always been the case, heretofore, when a temper, ance measure was in danger of .receiving a majority, that (to heat him tell it) firm friend of temperance, Mr. Hoover, of this district, did not vote.

Here ie something for all loyal men and especially Union soldiers to ruminate over: Last Thursday the flag of the Union waved at half-mast over the Inferior Department, the building was closed, and ai) the clerks had a holiday in honor of Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, who is dead. The suspension of all business for one iay in the Department involves a loss to the government of fully 515,000, in money, and delays for twenty four hours fill action on thousands of applications for pensions from men who were disabled by the acts of such men as Thompson. This man while Secretary of the Interior under Buchanan, and sworn to support the constitution of the United States, plotted treason and aided Rebellion, and at the last died an Unrepentant traitor and an alien to rhe government. During the war he was the chief instrument of the Confederate government in the attempt do spread contagious diseases through the northern cities, and the chief leader and organizer those who , planned to deluge the 'North in blood, at the hands of the rebel prisoners and Northern Copperheads. That a department of the government should have been closed in honor of such a man is an insult that ought to bring a blush of shame to the ijieeksnf every decent man in the

In nearly all cases people who grumble about' the subscription ” price of their * local papers, or make unfavorable comparisbns between them and the city papers, ’ do so from ignorance of the conditions under which they are published, and jvvitliout fairly estimating the real value of the country papers. The following from a late issue of the Indianapolis Journal says, in a clear and forcible manner, many things which readers of Country papers ought, in justice, to consider. We ask for the article a careful perusal: The value of few thingsis less appreciated than that of the country newspaper. The subscription price of the county press should be much more than $1 a year. At the rate of $2 a year, the cost per copy is less than four cents. Out of this the publisher must pay for paper, composition, presswork, distribution and postage, to say nothing Of the numerous other expenses incidentto the preparation ot a paper. At $1 a year, a decent county paper is circulated at an actual loss, and if the publisher realizes any profit, it must come from other sources than subscription. That country or county papers are sold at less than $2 is largely the fault of their owners. The cut in the price probably arose in an attempt to compete with city or daily papers that issue weekly editions. Many men not acquainted with the business “can t see why their county papers can't be sold just as cheap as can the Indiana State Journal." The reason is very simple when once explained. The Indianapolis Journal, publishing a daily edition, has greater facilities for collecting news for the weekly edition. Besides this, the Journal has a vastly larger field, and can therefore, command a much larger patronage. Wore the issue of the Indiana State Journal restricted to 1,000 or 2,000, as most county* papers are, by necessity, it could not be furnished for anything like §l, nor thrice that much. How unreasonable, then, to ask or expect publishers of county weeklies to attempt it. In no other branch of business is anything so cheap as a newspaper. Yet the man who thinks nothing of throwing down nickels and dimes for cigars, or for beer, often grumbles at the price of the paper that is to afford continued pleasure, not only to himself but to his family. The mistake made is in admitting that there is a rivalry between the county and the city press. There is not and can never be. The countypress has a field wholly its own; and this field, it ought to be said, has been more and still more fully occupied as the years pass. A marvelous advance has been made by the county papprs of Indiana during the past few years, notably during the past decade. If the reader does not realize this, let him take his home paper of to-day and compare it with an issue of the same or with one published in the same place before the war. The contrast will popularize the papers of the present time, and the wonder will be

that such a great measure of improvement has been achieved. The expense of publishing a paper in 1883, including the increased amount of labor’ put on it, is at least double wliat it was thirty years ago, jet in these days J? 2 was the well-nigh universal price. County papers should ho more be expected to compete in price with those of cities than a county carpenter should be expected to plane one board at the rate charged by mills where planing is done by the million teet by machinery that can not be transported to the spot where the one dressed board is required. The publisher of a weekly paper should not fail to appreciate the real value of hig labor, and should not consent to lose money on subscription in a senseless attempt to compete where no competition 'can be asxed. As well might a dry goods merchant attempt to compete with a hardware dealer. The man who wants the local news id detail of Greencastle, Attica, Peru or Manon does not subscribe for the Indianapolis Journal to get it—He would be foolish to it. On the contrary, he takes the county paper published in the locality in which he lives. The Journal can and does give the most important events of eVery locality in this and adjoining states. But it does not and can not ‘give that class of news dt interest to the people of the several localities. There is,' then, a field for each, or function for each. The Journal contains much of interest to every locality, from Lake Michigan to the Ohio,, and is valued everywhere tor the news it contains. But in each and every place the local paper stands next the people, and performs a service for them that neither the Journal nor anj’ other city paper pretends to. All things

considered, the price of a county weekly should be not less than $2. With a generous subscription list this would afford a decent support, in connection "with other sources of revenue. In return, the publishers would be enabled to still further increase the worth of .their respective papers, and the public would be the gainer- That publisher makes a ruinous mistake, who, for any reason, puts the price of his paper below the cost of printing it. The excellence of Indiana papers makes them deserving of a fair recompense. It should be given unqualifiedly.