Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 1898)
- 5JSP?-" "T ?!h H?' i Vr 4PWr" Si J? -Jr " --e. tf- jV ""i ,' THE COURIER. s- - W7- A-,- - V r?4-' KT-i.' fc- - r-r. &-.- .4. , r- &k- ar WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS. From Tho Mirror, of St. Louis. J There is noticeable and singular of a tendency in weekly publication to take the form of monthly periodicals. The Outlook first made t ho change. The Independent 19 following suit and the Critic, loo, is to be a monthly. That phenomenally banal "literary giant,' Mr. Frank A Munsey. has declared that the weekly is dead, because he has made a fortune through the metamor phosis of a bad weekly into a worse monthly. But the weekly, that is the high-claBS weekly, will not die. It al wa)B will appeal 1o the people who want thought and information, as distinct from the thrill of daily sensationalism and the kindergarten appeal of pictures. One might find confirmation of Mr. Munsey's opinion in the collapsa of the Arkell enterprises, Iwt it teems to me that the Arkell papers failed because they were conducted without regard to anything but commercialism. They did not come up to the demand of the many for mere amusement, and they had neither the dignity of attitude or the quality of thought, which the more rea sonable people demand. Arkell raQ his papers with the literary and artifetic features as considerations inferior to politics and profit. Leslie's Weekly and Judge were regarded as hopelessly per functory in their attempt to gratify any ae6theiic instinct in the public. Puck has deteriorated dismally since the deaths of Keppler, the cartoonist, and the lovable Bunner, the editor. I note, however, that Life, a gentleman's pa per, is prosperous. Collier's Weekly has come to the front because of its lit erary qualities and its special illustra tions by the best artists. Harper's Weekly remains a standard publication and so does the Bazar, and both are giving no evidence of falling out of the public regard. Tae Nution still holds its own as a very nigh-toned, if somewhat pessimistic, journal of com ment upon the higher things of life. The Argonaut, of San Francisco is a weekly that has long had a powerful influence among people who can appre ciategood reading and want the opinion of people of authority on the issues of the day. Town Topics, though a journal of so ciety, is not losing readers-, because it is a weekly in which can always be found sound criticism, the best of the lighter work of the oucg poets and paragraph ed, and the only specimens of the American type of the peculiarly Frtncby short stcry. The Mirror is another weekly that has no causa to complain of lack of patron age, because it eschews illustrations. The Mirror, like all the weeklies I have mantioned as not justifying the theory that the weekly is effete, makes appeal to a necessary limited class of thinking people, and it commands advertising by reason of the fact that its readers have time to read, and the money with which to buy things advertised in its columns. I observe, too. that the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post, which has been purchased by the Curtis Publishing Company, is, under the strong and dig nified editorship of Mr. William George Jordan, taking rank as a literary week, ly, with fine illustrations, stories at onca clean ana clever, and comment that is not designed to do more than give read ers the view of events that is held by decent, undemagogic, self-contained Americans. It is to be remembered that there is a great deal of mere noise about the successes of the cheaper mag azines. They are touched witi the taint ot Baxter street that we find in the Belf-exploitation of the yellow jour- mils. They are in vogue, but the vogue will pass. Advertisements are packed into these magazines so thickly that most of them represent wasted money. And the same advertisements appear in all GfoUBS. THE LAND OF CLUBS. the magazine?, so that one docs not look at thsadveitisiog department because ot its foreknowledge of its monotony. Tbn advertiser eventually will find this out, just aa he is finding out that Sunday Clubland hath lain in mist since spring; papers are so big an advertisement U The al'-enfoldtng summer's breath lest in them, and that if he would catch With labyrinth of flower andlcaf, tliepubli" he must make his bid on About its hidden portals ding, some other day. The good weekly will Somewhere within a dreamy bower outlivo tho Sunday paper and the cheap- Ib hutrUd iit findt lure nvoi er magazine. The dignified weekly will Whik natofe om oflcc mQn hold the respect of tho p ople when all The (Ueftr tnaJm y, and the "fads" pass away and when the pic ture craze in particular has had its day. At 8 glittering trace, The daily papers will give the news. Forth spring's a spirit clothed in tnight; Tho magazine will cater to the curiosity powerful grown, with keener sight or the public and to the taste for the lit- Ib faults. and errors to efface, erature that is usually insipid, because Rl tBcti, dub spirit! 'neath the flowers; of the evisceration thereof. The better Wind-swept by Zephyr-gathered thought: class of weeklies will continue to present While fragrant beauty, now unsought, opinions in condensed form and to stim- Dtik her essence in your bowers. ulate thought in the country among thosj people who are not swept off their fett by the ravings of the demagogues. The weeklies are tho only educators of the people upon public questions, be cause no one reads the editorials in the dailies. The daily is powerful only through coloring news. The people -Annie L. Miller It is safe to say that during the whole Biennial there wore no addreses looked forward to with more oagernese and lis tened to with more interest than those given by Miss Jane Addams of Hull HouEe fame. Miss Addams occupiea .lave no faith in the editorials of organs the uninue and important place at the that will color the newB. The weeklies top round on the ladder of philanthropic are the only papers that have individual- fame. Her first address at the "Great ity, and individuality. afte- all, is the Biennial'' was to the children at Broad thing which tells in the orld. The way theatre Sunday afternoon. A de weeklies may not attain to circulation in lightful program bad been arranged for such quantities as the daily papers or the younger folks which was another the magazine, but the quality is superi- inspiration of that wonderful committee or. The weeklies have more influence of arrangements. Miss Addams told of with the people who lead the macy, and the little Italian children of Chicago, they offer to the advertiser the attention Mre. S. W. Kendrick of Philadelphia, who is president of the "Good Citizen ship League'' of that city, told them of some of the requisites of good citizenship and of the importance of c ultivating high ideals and principles while still children. Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart read ex tracts from ''The Plantation" and cap tured her child audience, and some who were cot children, listened with breathless attention to the tale of Uncle Tim and Little Tim and their copartner Mrs. Stuart was compelled of those who buy only first-class goods. EASTWARD BOUND. A radiating- star of baldness crowned his head and down the sides of his cheeks ran a few tufts of grayish hair, ire stroked his chin nervously from time to time and cast deep, pene trating, ferreting1 glances first here, then there. Certainly ho must be a professional man. Taby across the way gave a short BnJp bapja dry cough. He looked up quickly. "Baby had the whooping cough, madam?" "Yes," said a funny voice. Then an inaudible explanation. "Oh. but Whooping cough is a con traction of the muscles of the throat-," he said severely. She lowered her eyes slightly, gave a frightened cough. "But. you see heard. to respond to two encores and 'recited "My Yellow Tiger Lily" and 'The Rose." Prof. W. J. Whiteman gave an illus tration, with a trained class, of his method used in the public schools in Denver in teaching voice culture to the pupils. He teaches them chords, scales and precision in time from the very be ginuing. The results as shown by this class were a revelation to the audience the rest not antj elicited much applause. Some very delightful music rendered by the "Ju- "Ah, that may be, may be, he re- nior Chorus" of the Woman's club, com plied, in a tone slightly less despotic p08ed of forty young ladies, all daugh- aiul turned to fix his eves upon his sun-liroii7ed neighbor. "Been in California, you said?" "Yes. six months. Great country, isn't it?" "Splendid, I was out there two years ago." "Go to Los Angeles?" said the doc tor. "Yes. leaiitiful place. Did you go to Bellevidere? That's the place." "Xo. I didn't go there." "Well," said the other man, "lots of wealth there. Mostly widows too, a good item to keep." "Yes." said the doctor, "a thing to remember. Mostly widows," and he stroked his chin. "It's quite a. place for rich men who are broken down. They go out there for their health and die." "And the widows remain?" "Yes," said the other man, and he smiled. "A good thing to remember," said the doctor, and he stroked his ohin. IIELFX C. IIARWOOD. -Aie you giving up poker- Jack Potts playing? Luke Pleasant I am alwajs giving who is a little body, with a sweet face up when I'm poker playing. filled with yearning to do good for ters of members of that club, closed one of the most pleasant and successful ses sions of the convention. I started to tell jou of Jane Addams, hut that delightful afternoon grows so fast when one becomes reminiscent that it will not requiescat in pace until it is told. The meeting wascalled together by Mrs. Piatt, who told the children that they had been especially invited, that they were wanted there to hear the good advice and kind words that leading women of the Biennial had come pre pared to impart. She told them that Miss Jcne Addams of Chicago, who be lievas it is nice to live in finshouees and have fine clothes, has instead taken up hor home with many poor children to help them to be good. "A lady met me in the theatre lobby yesterday," said Mrs. Piatt, "and asked me to point out Miss Addams to her. Just then Mies Addams passed. The woman exclaimed, 'Why, is she no bigger than that?' Now boys and girls, in her work she is as big asthid theatre as tall as Pike's Peak and of a great deal more importance in the world than either." After 3eing introduced Miss Addams, other, told in simple, pleasant lan guage bat Hull House has done and Is doing for the poor children of Chicago. She explained in detail tho methods used to cure Italian boys of the habit of picking up. promiscously. articles of small value, which 19 an inhorited habit of their far away homes in Sicily and Italy. No boy who heard her pirn for the Italian waif that afternoon but will treat him tn'ire kindly in the future. Mis Addams great talk was Sabbath even ing when she spoke on the "Spiritual Significance of Organization." She pos Besses in an unusual degree the power to carry her audience with her on all ques tions But when she talks from the standpoint of her life work for the com mon working people of theland to whose caubo she is devoting her life and her energies in her gentle, earnest way she seems inspired and it is little wonder that she was listened to with greater in terest perhaps than any other woman at that great coLVentioo. In her remarkB she praised labor unions for the work they had accomplished in securing her terlaws. The applause that followed the close of her addrers was lone con tinued. Her eloquent endorsement cf trades unionism evidently touched a tesponsive chord in her audience. Naming'the child is not alwajs air easy task. There is more importance at tached to results than appears at first thought. Now that every street, every town and country neighborhood pro duces a member of the great club fami ly, there are names that have grown mo notonous by frequent adoption, says the Kansas City Star Of the OOO organi zations in the great general federation list, 104 of these are designated simply as the Woman's club. Scores are saved only by the specification of Literary or Reading, Educational or Industrial, which gives to the Wo-nan's club a specific aim. The name in itself is a grand one no better but its frequent use cloys and the woman in quest of something new in the way of a club ap pellation is to be commended. The Fortnightly is one of the most pop ular of club names and Sorosis has a number of representatives east and west. The cay of the week upon which tho club meets is incorporated in the names or a number of study classes, with Tues day, Wednesday and Saturday leading the list. Several clubs escape the diffi culty of selection by announcing them selves as ."No Name." Shakspere clubs are almost universal, that of Colo rado Sprirgs making itself more specific by prefixing the name of Anne Hatha way. Friends in Council organizations in various localities are merely brrnches of a mother council, founded by Louisa M. Alcott. St. Cecelia flourishes in musical societies and the word Civics is conspicuous in reform clubs There are some names in the federation sufficiently quaint to attract attention. Georgetown. Col., has "The House Boat Club on the Mountain Top," Den ver its "Sphinx Club," "Aprender," "Columbine Reading circle," and '-The Four O'clock" in its list of twenty. Moscow. Idaho, has a department club, the Pleiades, and Wallace of the same state a Coeurd'Alene, Treble Clef, Alaho. L-jnd-a Hand of Chiiago is quaintly significant. ' Over the "Tea cups," suggestive of cozy exchange of sentiment, is the name cf clubs in In dianapolis. Ind , and in Spartanburg. S. C , and also of one in Missouri . Cando. F. D., hasaFleur de-Lis society. Wash ington, D. C, and Youngstown.O., have clubs named.Wimodaughsis, coined from the words wife, mother, daughter and eister. The Thimble club of Nevada, with a name that suggests domesticity, is intensely literary in its objects, and is this year acquainting itself with the works and lives of "Eminent Women in America." The practical trend of ene of the clubs of Salem, Mass.. is evidenced 2 M 1 $r&il. "tx-.v.