History of Saginaw county, Michigan; together with ... portraits ... and biographies ... History of Michigan ...

CHAPTER XVII.

THE COUNTY PRESS
The newspaper press of Saginaw county may claim to be the
true exponent of popular ideas, as well as the zealous guardian of
local interests. Seldom does it extend recognition to terrorism at
home or tyranny abroad,-never knowingly, except in very rare
cases where ignorance, pure and simple, leads the freeman of this
land to become a convert to the school of flunkeyism, or where the
people are so short-sighted as to permit an immigrant newspaper
writer to indulge in eulogies on the 'magnificence" of trans-Atlantic
peoples. Sometimes cuttings are made from monarchical papers,
the heading conveying an idea to the busy editor that the article is
newsy, and therefore worthy of space. It appears in the columns
of the journal without even a qualifying paragraph, and contributes
in a degree to build up a taste for royalty, pageantry, and all such
foolishness, in the hearts of the unthinking portion of our people.
Such trash should not be given to the people. Even though this
fulsome praise of the slave-holding monarchies and all their glittering palaces could take serious hold only of imbecile citizens, it
is not justice to furnish imbecility with fuel; it is not right to
place before it new subject matter which enables it, however
falsely, to extol the glories (?) and the pageants of principles and
men who cast a gloom over the civilization of our day. There is
little in trans-Atlantic government, in the slavery of seven-eighths
of the trans-Atlantic peoples, to commend itself; and the knowledge
of this, so prevalent in the United States, is a full safeguard against
the growth of that foolish, if not unnatural, and most pernicious
vice commonly called flunkeyism. The people understand their
duty to the Republic, and none among them more so than these
indefatigable men who identify themselves with the press of this
county.
Saginaw has reaped a rich harvest from the industry and honesty
of her newspaper men. All evidences point out her journalists of
the past to have been as truly honorable as are those of the present;
flunkeyism was not the attribute of any one of them; they labored
early and late in providing newsy and instructive reading for their
constituents; and if at any time a ridiculous eulogy on all that is
politically and socially false crept into their columns, they were the
first to denounce the buffoon who penned the lines of undeserved
praise. The press conferred inestimable good'upon this district;
it opposed premature innovations even as it urged necessary reforms; it set its denunciations of tyrannical and arbitrary measures
in black letter, stigmatized moral cowardice, and claimed that from
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