Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 327 



ported by three-fourths of the papers of the State. Don't mis- 

 understand me. I assert positively that the press has a power, the 

 mightiest in the community, but it lies in its legitimate field — the 

 publication of facts, the cold hard facts, the facts that hurt some- 

 times, but are necessary for the public good. For instance, a 

 country paper may editorialize, utter thundering phillipics against 

 the violations of the law concerning the disposal of cholera hogs, 

 but it will not have one-millionth the effect that the publication of 

 a six-line item giving the name of the farmer convicted of violat- 

 ing the law, especially if he happens to be a man of prominence in 

 his community. It has long been a conceded fact that publicity is 

 the great remedy for most of the diseases of our moral life, and 

 the country paper has the same opportunity in. its limited field as 

 has its big brother in the large city. But publicity, especially in 

 the case of the country paper, often means the loss of subscribers, 

 advertising and job printing, with perhaps an occasional thresh- 

 ing. I know, I've been there. 



Then comes the question, what is news ? What items shall be 

 chronicled for the interest of our farmer customers? Not easy 

 to answer. Neither is the question, what is not news? The page 

 known as country correspondence is not a complete answer, for in 

 this mass of items in the ideal country newspaper, there is much 

 chaff, much stuff that has no more right to be in type than the 

 nauseating piffle that crowds the society columns of the metro- 

 politan, paper. But on the whole, country correspondence serves 

 a great purpose, nothing more or less than fostering community 

 interest, without which life would be barren indeed. "Look not 

 every man on his own things, but also on the things of others" 

 applies in, the rural community more than any other place on earth. 

 The correspondence page contains scores of little happenings, not of 

 surpassing interest, it is true, but they are the lights and shadows 

 of life's great picture, not buried in a great art gallery in the dis- 

 tant city but spread out before our gaze every day. This interest 

 in the little, common every-day things of our neighbors may not be 

 necessary for the growing of the best hogs or the most corn, but 

 hogs and corn are not all there is to life. The correspondence page 

 offers a great opportunity for the building of community interest, 

 and the ideal newspaper overlooks no items of community move- 

 ments. And these things are many, lectures, church and school 

 entertainments, box suppers, debating societies, corn and colt 

 shows and lodge gatherings. Social events, properly reported, 



