Oregon Exchanges/Volume 8/Number 2

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Oregon Exchanges

For the Newspaper Folk of the State of Oregon

Vol. 8

Eugene, Oregon, December, 1924

No. 2

NEWSPAPER ASSISTANCE VITAL IN WORK OF BUILDING UP COMMUNITIES

[Extract from address delivered by Dr. B. M . Rastall, Manager of Californians Inc., at the second annual meeting of the Pacific Coast and Intermountain Newspaper Executives, held recently in San Francisco.]

THE American newspaper represents speed. It helps America think quicker and make quicker decisions. It presents in minutes, hours and seconds the intelligence of the world to industry, that industry may make quick decisions intelligently. Our whole American life has been built on the tradition that we have got to get and know the facts to function intelli gently. The actual news collected through out the world every day through the in genuity and enterprise of American newspapers is an aid to American pro gress in that it gives us vast background of facts which determine our actions, economic and political. The newspaper is the University of Today. It is perhaps the most important factor in the steady rising of the level of intelligence of America. In millions of instances, perhaps, it is the only printed intelligence that our citizens consult. One of the most important characteristics of the modern newspaper is its cosmopoli tanism. The newspaper is the enemy of provincialism, and provincialism is a threat against any social organization. The newspaper develops that something in the individual which inspires him to look beyond his own little world and teaches him to develop his community on broader lines out of the experience of many other communities. You cannot read the modern newspaper and stay in side of your own immediate circle men tally. I am not speaking entirely of the news or editorial aspects of the newspaper. I amume that most educators will agree that the advertising sections of a modern newspaper are almost as informative as its other columns. The best advertising today as presented to America’s reading public in the newspaper is both inspir ational and educational. The influence of the newspaper upon community life in America is deeply marked. It is not too daring to say that no other factor in community life is as important as the newspaper. It is responsible to a high degree for community progress. A community can grow in only two ways. It has to have either new people, new capital or both. Not so many years ago a man entering a new community with an industry had to depend upon the long, tedious process of developing per sonal acquaintanceships in order to sell his product, and his chances for success were very slim. To educate the people of the community was a colossal task, and failure was most often the rule rather than success. Today that has been changed. The newspaper has changed it. And communities, especially in the West, have driven forward with amazing rapidity because of the ability of the <7! newspaper to cultivate the intelligence of a community with new ideas and new inspirations.

The west is being developed today rapidly through newspaper influence. Communities are built almost over night in California through the facility with which their backers are able to reach the mind of America through newspaper advertising. Indeed, Californians Inc. itself through its national advertising of the opportunities California offers is a living example of the use of the news paper in community development. I am frank to attribute to our newspaper advertising much of the success of our national campaigns to attract new settlers and new industries to California. Through the newspaper we have been able to tell the story of California to the nation quickly and advantageously.

COMMUNITY SPIRIT DEVELOPED

In fact, the organization of Californians Inc. itself would probably have been almost impossible without the news paper. The development of the community spirit and its crystallization into actual accomplishment probably could not have been possible had it not been for the San Francisco newspapers. I am sure that you will agree with me that even were it possible to develop such a community organization as Californians Inc. without the newspaper it would have been a slow, tedious task with great loss of time and opportunity.

There is another aspect of the news paper which none of us should overlook. That is the community spirit of the newspaper. Unfortunately, too few of our citizenship understand what the newspaper gives to the community without charge. No other business gives as much. Californians Inc. not only has received free and unstintedly the space of San Francisco newspapers and California newspapers as a whole, but they have even contributed in cash to our advertising program. In other words, not only have they made the public mind of San Francisco and California, but they have energized that opinion into one of the most remarkable examples of community enterprise and team work in the history of the country.

You men are the motive power of this great modern, educational, community building machine—the newspaper. You are producing the most extraordinary service to your communities and to the nation as a whole. I need not charge you with your responsibilities in the job. Your newspapers are proof that you feel those responsibilities and that you are observing them for the betterment and progress of our social, political, econo mic and intellectual life.

COMING: NEW CHANCE TO WIN A HUNDRED

READERS of Oregon Exchanges recall that at the annual banquet of the Oregon State Editorial Association in the big armory at Tillamook, a prize of $100 was split evenly between R. W . Sawyer, publisher of the Bend Bulletin, and W. E. Phipps, then publisher of the Medford Clarion, for the best articles Written during the year on the general topic of the advisability of buying in Oregon. All of which is merely the prelude to the more timely statement that Dan C. Freeman, manager of the Associated Industries of Oregon, donor of the last $100, announces that he's ready to put an equal amount in circulation at the next meeting of the association, giving it to the writer of the best article on the general topic of "What Payrolls Are Doing for This Community and Our State."

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