Minnesota Weekly Times

Dedicated to our FRIENDS

We commend the following, from the pen of one of the Editors of the Chicago Tribune, to our snappish friends, who, if they dislike it must not blame us, but their own morbid, disagreeable dispositions. Read the article calmly, and then ask yourselves if it is not true:

"The result of my observations enables me to state, as a fact, that publishers of newspapers are more poorly rewarded than any other class of men in the United States, who invest an equal amount of labor, capital and thought. They are expected to do more service for less pay, to stand more sponging and "dead-heading," to puff and defend more people, and sorts of people, without fee or hope of reward, than any other class.— They credit wider and longer; get oftener cheated; suffer more pecuniary loss; and are oftener the victims of misplaced confidence, than any other calling in the community. People pay a printer's bill more reluctantly than any other.— It goes harder with them to expend a dollar on a valuable newspaper than ten on a useless gewgaw, yet everybody avails himself of the services of the editors and printer's ink. How many professional and political reputations and fortunes have been created and sustained by the friendly, though unrequited, pen of the editor? How many embryo towns and cities have been brought into notice, and puffed into prosperity by the press? How many railroads, now in successful operation, would have foundered but for the assistance of the "lever that moves the world?" In short, what branch of American industry or activity, has not been promoted, stimulated and defended by the press? And who has tendered it more than a miserable pittance for its mighty services? The bazaars of fashion and folly, the haunts of appetite and dissipation, are thronged with an eager crowd bearing gold in their palms and the commodities there vended are sold at enormous profits, though intrinsically worthless. and paid for with scrupulous punctuality; while the counting-room of the newspaper is the seat of jewing, cheapening, trade, orders and pennies. It is made a point of honor to liquidate a grog bill, but not of dishonor to repudiate a printer's bill."