Oregon Exchanges
For the Newspaper Men of the State of Oregon
CAN WE TRUST THE DAILY PRESS FOR SOUND OPINION?
Associate Editor and Editorial Writer, Portland Telegram
[Mr. Levinson visited the University of Oregon a few weeks ago and delivered an address at the regular weekly assembly of students and faculty, as well as making impromptu talks to several of the groups in the School of Journalism. The contact with Mr. Levinson, who drew on more than forty years of experience in the newspaper profession, was much enjoyed by the various groups. The following is the address delivered at the assembly, somewhat abridged to eliminate those parts designed exclusively for the students.]
MANY years ago ideas entered the minds of men, and they communicated the ideas by words and signs to their fellow men. Thousands of years later letters were invented, and men who had new ideas of their relations with one another recorded them on papyrus and thin, bleached leather. These writings were passed around among men who were able to think. Then, after many centuries, a man—for whom God be praised—invented movable type, and some skilled mechanic conceived and built the printing press. This mechanism has been steadily improved, and today with the aid of steam and electricity you can print a million copies of any idea in far less time than a rapid penman could write the first page.
About two hundred years ago a few men in the American colonies conceived and put forth new ideas of popular government. They printed these ideas on sheets of paper which were passed around among their neighbors. This plan filled a long felt want. Other ideas developed. Controversies arose. Opposing ideas were printed in pamphlet form and circulated. Demand for these ideas increased rapidly, and printers began publishing them at stated periods. Thus the weekly paper was established. Its contents for the most part were the opinions of men who had the capacity to think. When legislative bodies were in session these papers carried brief reports of the proceedings.
Some Big Developments
Men in business soon learned that the papers furnished an effective and expeditious means of reaching the public. Ship owners, for instance, employed the papers to announce the arrival and departure of vessels, and farmers used them to recover lost, strayed or stolen cattle. But these advertisements brought only a small revenue to the paper. As cities grew larger, the weekly paper added an edition printed daily.
In 1844 Samuel Morse annihilated time and distance by inventing the telegraph. Within twenty years we had the ocean cable, and the daily paper became the purveyor of the world's news, and at the
