AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS ON THEMSELVES.
It has been fairly proved in previous numbers of this Journal that so long as advertising continues, a newspaper can rarely be altogether dull, for the curiosities of the advertisement columns often exhibit strange freaks and fancies of human nature, which may afford amusement when the news columns are at their grimmest and dreariest. But the place of all others which may be regarded as the headquarters of the advertising genius is the land across the Atlantic, and the papers which are the medium of the greatest enterprise in this line are the Tribunes and Suns of the United States; and most entertaining of all are the announcements by which the American journals draw attention to their own brilliant pages. An English newspaper directory is not very attractive, except to the business portion of the community; but an American publication of the kind is of a much more amusing character; and in two bulky and comprehensive volumes, an indomitable transatlantic publisher has issued a universal gazetteer, wherein the newspapers of every part of the globe may be studied.
In the first place, it is enough for an English paper, as a rule, to state the town and county it represents; but young America must do more than this, if readers outside her various regions are to estimate the value of her press. Jacksonville or Euteroga must be set forth as indisputably the most thriving city in the richest district of the most prosperous State. Magnolia, advertisers are ‘notified,’ is a ‘flourishing town with more than twenty-five business-houses;’ Augusta ‘is growing and has a bright future;’ Westfield is ‘a thriving town of above a thousand inhabitants,’ clearly affording scope for a large circulation.
Manchester (United States), we learn, in a sentence racy of the soil, ‘is a large, live, and growing city, makes one hundred and seventy-nine miles of cloth per day, can build fifteen locomotives a month, and fifty steam fire-engines a year, and an endless variety of other products of skill and industry.’ Another rising spot has ‘fourteen grocery, three hardware, and five dry goods stores, four tailor-shops, six butcher-shops, two banks, four hotels, three grist-mills, two stave-factories, foundry, planing-mills, &c., and six churches, one of which cost about sixteen thousand dollars, and has a spire one hundred and forty-eight feet high.’ But this edifice is outdone in a third town which ‘points with just pride to its magnificent iron bridge, costing over forty thousand dollars, and other evidences of public enterprise.’ Middle Loup Valley is, we are told, ‘one of the largest and most productive valleys in the State, which is from its picturesque scenery and fertility of soil poetically called the “Rhine of America.”’ Another touch of poetry is come across unexpectedly: ‘A belt of fire from thousands of coke ovens surrounds Mount Pleasant, the centre of the great Connellsville Coke County, and the place where the Times and Mining Journal is published;’ and there is a rhythmical swing about the remark that the Honey Grove Independent ‘is published in the land where cotton grows rank and tall, and where cattle grow fat in the wild prairies.’ But Honey Grove with its cattle is nothing to Hancock County, where ‘the people have become so corpulent, that the druggists are all becoming independently rich from the sale of Allen’s Anti-Fat;’ and the Blue Grass Valley of Kentucky ‘is famous all over the world for its handsome women, thoroughbred horses, rich soil, and fine climate.’
To be worthy of a land like this, the newspapers also possess rare attractions for readers and advertisers, the latter especially. They are ‘alive and growing’ ‘newsy! pithy! spicy!’ one is a ‘paper for all mankind,’ another ‘overflows with local gossip,’ and a third ‘discusses public questions with lively respectability, and feeds its readers with no less than four and often five columns of spicy local matter each week;’ a fourth has ‘everything first-class;’ you can get ‘a bright and newsy wide-awake local paper,’ or ‘a live thirty-two column weekly;’ and the Eaton Rapids Journal will be found, appropriately to its name, ‘a live paper in a live town.’ Yet more richly descriptive is the account of the ‘red-hot local paper that feeds twenty thousand people every week and makes them fat; advertisements can reach millions of hungry minds through this medium.’ Again, we learn that ‘Life on the ocean wave is nothing compared with reading the Plymouth Pantograph.’ The Sacramento Bee is ‘the spiciest, ablest, most brilliant, and most independent journal published on the Pacific coast;’ while for ‘talking large,’ honourable mention should also be accorded to one of Cincinnati’s lights, which is ‘the best paper ever published. All its news is first-hand from upwards of fifteen hundred reporters and correspondents in every part of the United States and Europe.’
But these are mere outward characteristics and generalisations. Politics denote more distinctly the paper’s line of action, whether ‘stalwart Republican,’ ‘sound Democratic,’ or ‘Independent in all things, neutral in nothing.’ Independence is the cry of many; they are ‘bold and fearless,’ express a hatred of party, rings and ringsters. ‘Now in its third volume,’ exults one banner of freedom, ‘and has never halted by the way nor wearied of the fight. Always ready to take up the cause of the poor and oppressed, and never ready to surrender its independence to party, clique, or ring.’ ‘Has no axe to grind other than the advancement of every social reform,’ a second patriot proclaims. ‘Therefore it hits a head whenever that head is seen in opposition to true advancement.’ For the extremes of party violence we must go to a Southern journal, which does not, it may well be hoped, ‘speak as the masses of our people feel and talk;’ if it does, so much the worse for the people. ‘If the Yankees,’ this rodomontade begins, ‘want to know the real sentiments of our people; if they want to have a realising sense of the utter madness of trying to govern the grand old sovereign States of the Confederacy, they will close their ears to the lying professions of our policy-bumming politicians and subscribe to the Bartlett News.’ Perhaps some such rant as that of the Bartlett News a certain Labor Standard had in view while stating itself to be ‘not a blowing, blustering, black-mail sheet which has to be read in private because its contents are unfit to be seen in the family,’ but ‘a clean live weekly paper, devoted entirely to the interests of the working-classes.’
A Texan organ ‘will seek to be a photograph of all the resources and needs of Texas; a mirror of her markets; a barometer of pure principles, sound public faith, and private honour. Democratic, but conservative, independent and outspoken in the exalted interests of just criticism—no panderer to partisan men or measures, whether right or wrong!’ This is independence with a vengeance, ahead even of the gazette which ‘favours immigration, morality, and the Christian religion; and unflinchingly opposes shams, rings, rogues, and enemies to the people. It exposes villainy and crime wherever found, and hence is read by the more intelligent classes of people in the field where it circulates.’
The conjunction of immigration and the Christian religion reminds one of the much bemourned lady who ‘painted in water-colours and of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ But there is a still more frank linking together of things temporal and spiritual in the ‘only Democratic out-and-out paper in Western Iowa,’ which sails under the motto, more Yankee than reverent, ‘Fear God, tell the truth, and make money;’ the editor further announcing that if he ‘is allowed to live under a Republican administration another year, he will carry your advertising at five cents per line, fifty dollars per column, or furnish his paper for one dollar fifty cents per year.’
The Horseheads Journal and Chemung Co. Greenback ‘exposes rascality everywhere, and aims to give something to interest and instruct everybody every week,’ from which it may be surmised that the Horseheads Journal and Chemung Co. Greenback is happier in its object than in its title. Many of these ‘wide-awake and spicy’ representatives of Western culture are not remarkable for the elegance of their names, the admixture of Indian and American resulting in some curious compounds, such as the Petrolea Topic, the Klickitat Sentinel, the Katahdin Kalendar, the Waxahachie Enterprise, and the Coshocton Age. Yankee, pure and simple, reigns in the Weekly Blade, Jacksonian, Biggsville Clipper, People’s Telephone, and New Haven Palladium; but there is a charm of euphony about the Xenia Sunlight and Golden Globe, and the brevity which may be the soul of wit in the Call, Item, Plaindealer, and Editor’s Eye.
The editors, as is well known, come much more to the front than is the case in England; they do not remain the invisible and mysterious ‘we’ of the editorial sanctum; their names are frequently advertised with those of the publishers, occasionally, indeed, accompanied by a portrait or other additional recommendation; one paper ‘is edited by two of the ablest newspaper men in the State, and it will be hard to find a better team in the editorial harness.’ ‘The most important feature,’ we learn, ‘of the Free Press is its funny squibs by the editor, “Driftings from Dreamland,” which are original and spicy;’ and as appropriately named, surely, is ‘a humorous department, “Tea and Toast,”’ to be found in another print. A Texas editor offers ‘upon justifiable encouragement to visit any county or city in Texas or Mexico and make a statistical “write-up” of their every interest and advantage,’ indicative of lively and reliable information for intending immigrants; and a Highland Recorder, with an affection for the Land o’ Cakes one can but sympathise with, says that ‘every page breathes of Clan-Alpine freshness.’
Great stress is laid upon the home-printing of the small journals—‘no patent outside or inside;’ ‘almost every sentence is of home manufacture, little clipping is done;’ ‘the only paper that does all its work at home,’ &c. A further noticeable feature is the frequent use of certificates and testimonials as to circulation from public and private individuals or from contemporary prints, or of self-recommendations such as that of the paper which ‘has a very fine list of country subscribers,’ or of the journal ‘published by a genuine Jayhawker,’ which ‘goes to every post-office in the northern part of the State.’
It is when we come to the direct announcements to advertisers, however, that we get perhaps the queerest hints from our American cousins. ‘Advertising rates cheerfully furnished’ appears frequently; ‘Advertisers love it’ is a short and sweet statement regarding one paper; ‘Should be patronised by every live advertiser;’ ‘Advertisers, do you want some return for your money? Read our inducements,’ say others. Then, ‘The modesty of the publishers deters them from mentioning the peculiar merits of the Courier as an advertising medium’—a modesty rivalled by the remark, ‘Rates of advertising so low that we are almost ashamed to announce them,’ which differs from the standpoint of a third, ‘Advertising rates held high enough to make a living for the publisher;’ and the latter appears upon the whole to be the more general sentiment, as may be testified by ‘Don’t send offers under price,’ ‘We only advertise for money.’ The last sentence alludes to a species of exchange evidently less popular among the publishers than with their clients. ‘No advertising solicited,’ says the Westfield Pantograph, ‘except for cash, or what may be as good. No space to give away or let at half-price.’ More decisive is the Calhoun Pilot, which ‘is choice in the admission of advertisements in its columns, and those it does admit, “due bills” of no character will settle for them. Must be in hard cash quarterly in advance, unless good references are given. Save your paper and postage, ye advertisers who have nothing to offer us for our space than your wares and due bills. We don’t want ’em. We have a good article to retail, and nothing but the almighty dollar will buy it. But,’ adds the Pilot more amiably, ‘while this is strictly our rule, our rates are low, and we give value received for all the lucre you place in our possession.’ Still more downright is the declaration, ‘No three-cornered patent pills, second-hand clothing, skunk-hunting machines, or hand-organs taken in payment for advertising.’ ‘The News publishes no dead ads., and gives no puffs;’ ‘No half-cash advertisements accepted, no swindling or bogus patrons wanted.’ ‘Dead-beat, swindling advertisers,’ sarcastically announces the Troy Free Press, ‘can have their matter chucked carefully into the stove by sending them to our office. Our space is for sale, and must be paid for at living rates.’ But there is encouragement for honest advertisers given by a Clipper-Herald through whose columns announcements ‘go to that class of people who are honest and intelligent and who pay for what they get;’ and in an equally straightforward assertion elsewhere, the mens conscia recti of the editor rises superior to grammar into the realms of wit: ‘Has a good circulation among a prompt-paying class of people—these be facts!’
Facts or not, there is a distinctive character about Jonathan’s advertisements equal to some of the fiction with which he has supplied us.