TH

HE American Society of Newspaper Editors was recently in session in Washington. It is composed of directing editors of daily newspapers in cities of over fifty thousand population. There have been among the membership editors of papers in towns smaller than fifty thousand, but they were elected as celebrities rather than as editors. President Harding was one of them. No man not some sort of editor of some sort of daily newspaper has ever been a member. I was permitted to hang around this meeting as a sort of earth-bound, disembodied spirit of a daily newspaper editor.

The American Society of Newspaper Editors is deeply concerned about newspaper ethics. It has undertaken a codification in what is called "Canons of Journalism." Responsibility, independence, sincerity, truthfulness, accuracy, impartiality, fair play, and decencythese are the essentials as codified. They apply, it seems to me, as completely to a baseball umpire as to an editor.

But, being concerned with ethics, the American Society of Newspaper Editors is naturally concerned with the handling of crime news. That is the subject to which discussion always reverted. They talked of keeping it off the front page. They talked of letting it take its chance in the run-o' the-mine. They talked of segregating it on an inside page. They talked of leaving it out altogether, though nobody advocated doing so. They talked of the good it does and of the harm.

tors of dailies, it seemed that they never got down to the roots. If a ghost could have found a voice, I should have said: "To our ethics, oh, Editors! To the canons! Truthfulness! Or, abandoning truth as something unattainable to mortals, facts! When we print the facts, the complete facts, and nothing but the facts. of crime, we rob crime news of its power to do harm to those who are not yet criminals. Crime is not glorious. Crime is not heroic. The facts show it to be neither the one nor the other. When we print the facts, we do not make heroes of criminals and we do not inspire emulation of criminals in the hearts of boysand of girls."

The crime story is among the greatest of newspaper stories. It has its place, on the front page, on an inside page, on the back page. But it is a fact story, and we have largely lost the art of writing it. In the good old days, when the good reporter was the greatest among the craft, we wrote crime stories that made newspapers and did no harm to anybody. No sob sister in breeches ever has written or ever will write a sensational story of crime that will hold the interest of readers as those old fact stories of crime did.

INTO the frenzied scramble and clatter

of a stampede rode the National Council of Farmers' Co-operative Marketing Associations. While the Administration rode with the maddened herd, in danger of being crushed but with hope of heading off the stampede some miles down the prairie, Robert W. Bingham and Aaron Sapiro came to its aid. The National Council of Farmers' Co-operative Marketing Associations adopted a resolution opposing anything in the nature of a Government export corporation.

This was to have been, and doubtless was, expected. The N. C. F. C. M. A. has always been on that side. I tried to show how and why when I wrote "Everett and Old Man Jim" a year ago. But, for all that it was to be and was expected, it came very near not happening. The N. C. F. C. M. A. is no longer solidly opposed to the Government's taking idly opposed to the Government's taking a hand in the disposal of crop surpluses. There were four outstanding figures in the meeting in Washington: Bingham, Lowden, Sapiro, Poteet. Two of these, Robert W. Bingham and Aaron Sapiro, stood stanchly against the export corporation idea. The two others, Frank O. Lowden and Walton Poteet, vigorously advocated it. Bingham and Sapiro triadvocated it. Bingham and Sapiro triumphed, but not by much. Lowden is not much less the leader than Bingham, Sapiro not much more the accepted ex

The newspaper reports of the meeting did not give an entirely accurate impression of its significance. The name, National Council of Farmers' Co-operative Marketing Associations, conveys the idea of all-inclusiveness. The organization is not, however, all inclusive. It is merely one of several groups of farmers' cooperatives, and not the largest. Published figures show that its membership is decidedly smaller than that of the American Farm Bureau Federation,

which, at Chicago, adopted a resolution favoring the export corporation immediately after President Coolidge, at the meeting for the purpose of delivering the principal address, had asked it not to.

The action of the National Association of Farmers' Co-operative Marketing Associations does not mean that the agricultural revolt has been put down.

Jardine the cowboy still rides with the stampeded herd. But he has not headed it-not yet.

OME of us down here are wondering

SOME

why Mrs. Henderson persists in her effort to reform the dress of women, who resent it, instead of setting about reforming the dress of men, who would welcome it. We are slaves to multiplicity. A man, dressing in the generally accepted simple fashion for the street in winter, must put on twenty-two separate articles of clothing. And this does not include any jewelry or ornamentation even of the simplest, but merely the articles of fabric, leather, and felt. Why we do not revolt even without a leader can be explained only on the supposition that we do not realize how many articles we have to

D

The Country Press

By DON C. SEITZ

ESPITE the seeming dominance

of the metropolitan daily and the flood of the "Saturday Evening Post," there are something like 20,000 country weeklies published in the United States, and nearly 2,000 dailies that can be called country. The country daily has especially enjoyed a new-found prosperity that, as a rule, is deserved. To a far greater extent than their city brethren they have improved in appearance and increased in opulence. Many of them are veritable gold mines. A look at the income-tax payments made by some of their owners makes even a wellpaid city hired man sit up and wonder if he had been truly wise in lighting out for the metropolis. Like his largetown rival, the county-city publisher has abandoned in great measure any effort to influence his readers, and seldom antagonizes. The number of the one-paper towns is steadily growing, and that one paper is pretty sure to be a "pudding," in the parlance of the trade. Incomes of $50,000 and $100,000 a year accrue in numerous instances, while in larger inland cities the increment to the owner is often amazing. The owner of the New Haven "Evening Register" paid an income tax of $132,000 in 1924, and a bigger one the year before. If his rivals in New Haven paid any, however, it is not visible through the microscope. Hartford and Providence each have an immensely profitable paper in the "Times" and the "Courant." Worcester supports another. Indeed, the lead in towns over 100,000 in population is something worth having. The smaller cities in New England do not yield as much as in New York, New Jersey, or the Middle West. Portland, Maine, has become a two-paper town, under one ownership, and that Republican. The Bangor "Commercial," once a powerful Democratic paper, after a brief complication with speculation in silver foxes, has become Republican. The Lewiston "Morning Sun" is left the only Democratic daily in the State. It is crisp and able. The Lewiston "Journal" holds the evening field, with exceptional editorial features written by Arthur G. Staples, but has lost the eagerness in news hunting that prevailed in the days of Frank and Nelson Dingley.

New York's up-State dailies are good. Some, like the Watertown "Times," edited by Harold B. Johnson, are exceptional. Hearst blights are on Albany, Rochester, and Syracuse. A strong chain has been built up by Frank E. Gannett with papers in Ithaca, Elmira, Rochester, Utica, and Newburgh. They are good papers and make money, but, like chain stores, enjoy advantages that are not shared by the communities in which they do business.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Vance C. McCormick has put the old "Patriot" to the fore, and this, with the Lancaster "Intelligencer," upholds Democratic ideals in the State. The Republican papers dominate elsewhere.

In Ohio the country dailies prosper amazingly, and there are nearly one hundred and fifty of them. Large towns, such as Youngstown, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, make great returns. Toledo, Dayton, and Akron follow.

Indiana has good papers at South Bend and Fort Wayne. The "News" of Indianapolis has long been the bible of the State. It is owned by the heir of Vice-President C. W. Fairbanks.

IN

N Michigan, Detroit. is, of course, a metropolis, yet has but three newspapers the amazingly profitable "News" in the evening, the "Free Press" in the morning, and the "Times," a Hearst outfit, running most of the time. This last represents in its growth the inability or unwillingness of Detroit to support a paper of good taste and moral spirit, which is what the "Times" was under its founder, James Schermerhorn, who struggled for nearly two decades

against the tide. He invented the "Today" column, which Mr. Brisbane has appropriated to great advantage. Elsewhere in Michigan the Booth family newspapers lead in prosperity. They are usually one-paper-town enterprises, carefully managed on the financial side, circulated with meticulous skill, and of a tone that would not jar the most sensitive subscriber.

Milwaukee is well fed up on Hearst papers, morning and evening, but the independent "Journal" is the most prosperous. and Victor Berger keeps his So

cialistic "Leader" alive and himself in Congress.

St. Paul has become a two-paper town under one ownership, and Minneapolis divides itself between the "Tribune" and the "Journal." The State has some good country dailies. While most of the papers are Republican, Minnesota is pretty independent, thanks to the Nordics.

Iowa journalism is rather slight in influence, but prosperous in results for its owners. Nebraska editors make little noise outside of Omaha. The "Bee," once always buzzing under Edward Rosewater, sticks close to the hive. Senator Hitchcock's "World-Herald" has some voice left.

Missouri does not furnish much pabulum outside of St. Louis. Here the "Post-Dispatch" adheres to the lines of Joseph Pulitzer and succeeds handsomely, and the "Globe-Democrat," following the course laid down by J. B. McCullagh, is also widely read. Much money has been spent by rivals of both, without avail in making headway.

Nevada is neglible in a newspaper sense. Portland, Oregon, is a two-paper town. Seattle has been partly captured by Hearst, though the Blethen "Times” stays strong in circulation and moneymaking. Mr. Hearst dominates San Francisco and challenges the "Times" in Los Angeles.

The Denver "Post" is the most energetic sheet in Colorado. It is bitterly condemned for personal journalism and often accused of blackmailing methods, but grows and thrives on its ill repute.

URNING to the South, we find much

TUR

to interest in newspaper development. The boom spots in Florida have developed amazing newspapers. Miami has two. The "Morning Herald" is one of the best-made papers in America in looks and matter, while former Governor James M. Cox, of Ohio, and later candidate for President, owns the "Evening News." It has recently moved into a fine building with a lofty tower rivaling the Campanile in Florence. This, lit up at night, has proved a boon to the bootleggers of Bimini in making a Florida landfall. Jacksonville once had good

In Alabama the Mobile "Register" succeeds under Northern ownership, while the Montgomery "Advertiser" remains the most important paper in the State. Louisiana furnishes little to review outside of New Orleans and Shreveport. Robert Ewing dominates these cities with the "States" and "Times." The "Times-Picayune" is alone in the New Orleans morning field, and is Northernowned in the main. It is a good paper, but runs to make money. The "Evening Item," owned by Frederick M. Thompson, is also Northern in its ownership.

There is some Hearst in Texas. The Dallas and the Galveston "News" come the nearest to being real newspapers, both under the same control. Oil has boomed Fort Worth, and done much for the "Star Telegram."

Most of the Southern dailies preserve their initiative in the face of prosperity, and then in a region where it requires much courage to keep up steam. The Columbus, Georgia, "Enquirer-Sun," for example, makes bold pleas for justice for the Negro and justice to the lyncher. The Spartanburg, South Carolina, "Journal" and its morning issue, the "Herald," are superior papers editorially in both matter and courage. The Columbia "State" is outstanding in its merits. In North Carolina the Charlotte "Observer" and the "News and Observer" of Raleigh are notable. The latter is edited by Josephus Daniels, late Secretary of the Navy. It makes a great deal of money and is a force behind the Church and prohibition in a whisky-drinking, guntoting land.

Richmond, the capital of Virginia, is down to two newspapers-the "Dispatch" in the morning and the "NewsLeader" in the evening. Mr. John Stewart Bryan, owner of the latter, holds to high ideals and has not suffered in consequence. The slashing editors of the old days are gone, and but little opinion is manufactured in what was once the capital of the South. Norfolk has rich papers, as becomes a commercial town. For the rest of the State the crop is poor and the output backward.

TURNING away from dailies, we find

the country weekly still unchallenged in its field, though it would be hard to prove that it has progressed intellectually. The tendency has been away from efforts at influence, and in the direction of a closer chronicler of local news. Here it is invincible and invaluable. If it has lost in ability, it has increased in prosperity. Small communities are sensitive and resent criticism or sug

A few charges against the local windmill usually sobers the most valiant young editor. The puissant "leading citizen" soon teaches him his place. This was not always so, though often attempted. I recall with joy the reply made by my late friend Ervin Edwards, owner of the Greenwich "Graphic," and brother of the talented E. Jay Edwards, to the leading citizen who held a mortgage on his building. The L. C. was indignant over some matter of local policy. "If you are not careful," he roared, "you will have to print your rag in the street." "Very well," answered Edwards, "I will print it in the street."

And he would have done so. It would probably have given him a lift in the community such as he never enjoyed before, but the L. C. cooled off.

The small towns, as a rule, do not respect the local papers as they should. The little locals are sniffed at with contempt. Slang names are employed in designating the useful publications. I know an excellent "Plaindealer" that is commonly alluded to as the "Painkiller," while "Bladder" is often opprobriously applied to the weeklies in many towns. I do not know why this is so, except that small towns contain more condensed cussedness than big ones. The newspaper is loyal to the community and everybody in it, but nobody feels any sense of loyalty to the newspaper. Most of them receive but $1.50 a year from subscribers-less than three cents a copy for an amazing lot of information and convenience. They usually have to be clubbed into paying this, and when the Post Office rule requiring advance payment went into effect the country weeklies lost about twenty-five per cent of their read

have. The hooks in the rear office were full of garments discarded by tramp printers after picking up a couple of weeks' pay. He was told to help himself. Shortly he came back to the press side, comparatively transformed, and watched the operations of the clumsy machine curiously.

"What does the paper cost?" he asked. "Eight dollars a year."

He dug $8 out of his pants' pocket and started to leave.

"Hold on," said the foreman. "Where do you want it sent?"

"I'll let you know," he replied, "when I git settled. I'm traveling."

He stepped out into the moonlight. In half an hour there was a clatter of hoofs and rattling of arms outside. In came the sheriff of Carson and a brace of deputies. Had the printers seen anything of a small man, half dressed and unshaven?

Little Bob was prompt to make reply: "Yes. He was here half an hour ago." "Which way did he go?"

Bob started to reply, giving the correct information.

"Shut up," said the foreman in his ear. "I'll attend to this."

He went on glibly to lay out a route for the stranger, just opposite to the one he had taken-down the main road to the Canyon.

The sheriff made it known that the visitor was Black Bart, a highwayman who had just escaped from the Nevada penitentiary, and rode away with his deputies on the wrong trail.

"What did you lie to them for, Jim?" Bob asked the foreman. "Hell!" he said.

"You wouldn't go back on a subscriber, would you?"

If the subscribers would take the same attitude toward the editor, his lot would be easier. Here and there, however, a country weekly shows its head strongly enough to stand alone. The Norway, Maine, "Advertiser" is a sample success. It attends strictly to business. The Lyons, New York, "Republican" is another. Its editor, Charles H. Betts, has been able to serve the New York State Legislature, and with distinction, yet still retaining his hold upon his community. He has taken so active a part in politics as to severely test his newspaper. It has stood the strain by sheer ability. Not many editors have the time to do much distinctive writing. I have one in mind who can and does. He is Williston Manley, of the Canton, New York, "Plaindealer," who writes a "Rounder" column that would grace any publication, and is not afraid to say what he thinks.

The country field holds many opportunities where those shut out of higher activities by city consolidations can find

room and good livings. There must be a reaction in favor of more people and better living in the small towns and away from city congestion. Good roads and

I

automobiles are evening the flow of money throughout the land. Soon one spot will be about as good as another, and chances for success will be more

evenly distributed. In this the country paper will reap its deferred reward for doing so much for a community that the community is unable to do for itself.

N riding through a certain section of New England one comes upon a dirty mill village in a valley. It is just like a thousand others, except that in the center is a beautiful War Memorial Plaza with a magnificent drinkingfountain and a great towering mermaid. The contrast between the dirty tumbledown houses and yards and streets and the expensive town center, worthy of a city residential section, made me determine to inquire about it.

The trolley car takes us around through a stretch of pasture lands, and then brings us to the old and historic

hilltop community which forms the other village of the town. Here the noble elms of the early residents now give distinction as well as shade to the streets. The colonial style of buildings is everywhere. The people are the cream of New England. The old place is fragrant with its traditions of early inventions, culture of the "sweetness and light" period, and historic characters.

On making inquiries, I find that the hill people rather begrudge the luxurious town center in the dirty little village below them. It seems that the hill people own almost the entire land and property of the town except the mill property itself. They pay almost the whole taxes; and yet, since they were outnumbered in actual voters by the floating population of mill workers, the appropriation was made in a town meeting and, in spite of all opposition, put through, to be almost wholly paid for by the hill people's tax money.

I suppose it is taxation without representation, but there is nothing the hill people can do about it, and the worst is, that they will probably continue to be outnumbered and obliged to obey the dictates of that part of the voters who pay only poll taxes.

Yes, it is humiliating, especially so in the light of the past, when one considers the sweat and toil of the fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, who made the town what it is, and their expectation that their descendants would

be the governing people of the town. And it is humiliating that people of education, refinement, and ability should be outvoted and overruled by the ignorant, crude, and even stupid. But this is a democracy! Unless these hill people are willing to submit to the rule of their inferiors they must change the present voting constituency, and that is what they have tried to do by ousting from their rents some of the least desirable citizens. This method is only a makeshift, and will always be uncertain and unsatisfactory.

N. N a democracy the majority, whether ignorant or wise, must rule; and the ideal of a true democracy is that the opportunities and caliber of its citizens shall be so rich, so elevated, so upright, that that rule may be just, and therefore happy.

The people of the mill village had the majority of the citizens because their women bore more children.

The average number of children produced there would approximate eight. I say it to their credit!

The average number of children produced in the hilltop village would, I know from actual count, be no more than two, possibly less. The ideal fostered in their minds has been that it is better to have two highly gifted, richly endowed, thoroughly trained children than eight who must live plainly and self-denyingly and struggle for the necessities of life.

In the aristocracies of Europe this ideal would perhaps work no great calamity. There this ideal has coincided with the form of government, the rule of the few highly gifted and superior élite. But this ideal is exactly contrary to the necessities of our democracy, which demands a larger proportion of able citizens who in local and National Government must decide more and more complicated and difficult problems. Two well-educated and thoroughly trained voters cannot take the place of eight ignorant and poorly trained voters in a

democracy. When it comes to a showdown, the eight voters will manage everything that comes up to their satisfaction, and the outvoted two may just as well hand over the government to the eight. This is what is being done in many parts of the country to-day. The plaza and the fountain and the overwhelming mermaid may just stand as a monument to the folly of such an illogical and unnatural ideal.

HOULD you interview the people on

SHO

the hilltop in regard to the ideal American family, they will unfailingly indicate to you the small family. The American family means two children in fact, if not in theory. They will answer you with proud looks, "We intend to produce quality, not quantity!" And they feel that they are doing nobly. Meanwhile the people who believe in quantity are taking the lead in America because of the number of their votes. They gain in power every day.

In one of our big cities is a common situation in our American life. I know of a restaurant run by a Greek, next door to which a brother runs a confectionery store. Around the corner another of the brothers runs a grocery store. On this same street another brother runs four big three-decker tenements and an apartment-house. Another brother runs a fruit store, and sends out three carts to peddle fruits and vegetables. The father of these young men conducts a small steamship office and neighborhood bank. They do this all in concert and share the profits.

Contrast the power of this business alliance with the power of the one struggling little grocery store of the one child the neighboring American family has produced. In that same city is a chain of forty stores owned by six Irish brothers. In that same city five powerful, but unscrupulous, brothers work for one another and all the causes of immorality on the police force, fire department, and in the city government. For their factions in the city these family