Upon the whole, our paper was an attempt at conscientious and
self-respecting journalism; it addressed itself seriously to the minds
of its readers; it sought to form their tastes and opinions. I do not
know how much it influenced them, if it influenced them at all, and as
to any effect beyond the circle of its subscribers, that cannot be
imagined, even in a fond retrospect. But since no good effort is
altogether lost, I am sure that this endeavor must have had some tacit
effect; and I am sure that no one got harm from a sincerity of
conviction that devoted itself to the highest interests of the reader,
that appealed to nothing base, and flattered nothing foolish in him. It
went from our home to the homes of the people in a very literal sense,
for my father usually brought his exchanges from the office at the end
of his day there, and made his selections or wrote his editorials while
the household work went on him, about and his children gathered around
the same lamp, with their books or their jokes; there were a good many
of both.
Our county was the most characteristic of that remarkable group of
counties in northern Ohio called the Western Reserve, and forty years
ago the population was almost purely New England in origin, either by
direct settlement from Connecticut, or indirectly after the sojourn of a
generation in New York State. We were ourselves from southern Ohio,
where the life was then strongly tinged by the adjoining life of
Kentucky and Virginia, and we found these transplanted Yankees cold and
blunt in their manners; but we did not undervalue their virtues. They
were very radical in every way, and hospitable to novelty of all kinds.
I imagine that they tested more new religions and new patents than have
been even heard of in less inquiring communities. When we came among
them they had lately been swept by the fires of spiritualism, which left
behind a great deal of smoke and ashes where the inherited New England
orthodoxy had been. They were temperate, hard-working, hard-thinking
folks, who dwelt on their scattered farms, and came up to the county
fair once a year, when they were apt to visit the printing-office and
pay for their papers. They thought it droll, as people of the simpler
occupations are apt to think all the more complex arts; and one of them
once went so far in expression of his humorous conception as to say,
after a long stare at one of the compositors dodging and pecking at the
type in his case, "Like an old hen pickin' up millet." This sort of
silence, and this sort of comment, both exasperated the printers, who
took their revenge as they could. They fed it full, once, when a country
subscriber's horse, hitched before the office, crossed his hind legs
and sat down in his harness like a tired man, and they proposed to go
out and offer him a chair, to take him a glass of water, and ask him to
come inside. Fate did not often give them such innings; they mostly had
to create their chances of reprisal, but they did not mind that.
There was always a good deal of talk going on, but, although we were
very ardent politicians, our talk was not political. When it was not
mere banter, it was mostly literary; we disputed about authors among
ourselves and with the village wits who dropped in, and liked to stand
with their backs to our stove and challenge opinion concerning Holmes
and Poe, Irving and Macaulay, Pope and Byron, Dickens and Shakespeare.
But it was Shakespeare who was oftenest on our tongues; indeed, the
printing-office of former days had so much affinity with the theater
that compositors and comedians were almost convertible. Religion entered
a good deal into our discussions, which my father, the most tolerant of
men, would not suffer to become irreverent. Part of his duty, as
publisher of the paper, was to bear patiently with the type of farmer
who thought he wished to discontinue his paper, and really wished to be
talked into continuing it. I think he rather enjoyed letting such a
subscriber talk himself out, and carrying him from point to point in his
argument, always consenting that he knew best what he wanted to do, but
skilfully persuading him at last that a home paper was more suited to
his needs than any city substitute. Once I could have given the heads of
his reasoning, but they are gone from me now.
He was like all country editors then, and I dare say now, in being a
printer as well as an editor, and he took a just share in the mechanical
labors. These were formerly much more burdensome, for twice or thrice
the present type-setting was then done in the country offices. In that
time we had three journeymen at work and two or three girl-compositors,
and commonly a boy-apprentice besides. The paper was richer in a
personal quality, and the printing-office was unquestionably more of a
school. After we began to take girl-apprentices it became coeducative,
as far as they cared to profit by it; but I think it did not serve to
widen their thoughts or quicken their wits as it did those of the boys.
They looked to their craft as a living, not as a life, and they had no
pride in it. They did not learn the whole trade, as the journeymen had
done; but served only such apprenticeship as fitted them to set type;
and their earnings were usually as great at the end of a month as at the
end of a year.