Humble Shover of the Lead Pencil

Another 4th of July passed leaving a variety of memories.  A good many celebrations were held in communities, with family groups, and, surprisingly, road construction crews worked in Fargo at several sites. Me, I could’ve been found helping out at the The Hunter Times.  

Bonanzaville in West Fargo hosts special days to draw folks in, the 4th being one of them.  Volunteers staff various shops in their old-time village and demonstrate the workings of each store.  The Hunter Times building moved from that town to a new home on a Bonanzaville’s streets and contains working examples of the old print trade.  It printed a weekly paper until 1970 after which it combined with the The Cass County Reporter in Casselton.  As an aside, the walls of the Times hold several bullet holes from the shots of bank robbers as they sped out of town.

How I found myself in that print shop on the 4th can be blamed on Allan Burke, publisher of the weekly Emmons County Record in Linton.  Allan knows me, publishes some of my articles, and not being bashful, asked if I’d volunteer.  I only know something of writing and nothing about the mechanics of the print trade.  Needless to say, I learned from watching the old printers who came in to run the presses.  I relegated myself to greeting visitors and handing out an information pamphlet.

The history of newspapers spreading westward fascinates me.  One website - The Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University - features a three minute film showing an animated map that clicks through the years from 1690-2011 with little dots lighting up to mark  the location of each paper. It is quite remarkable to watch the dots appear to mark newspapers  marching westward.  The Center identified 10,242 weeklies by 2011 with “Publick Occurrences,” being the first, printed in 1690 in Boston.

A large heavy Linotype machine sits in the Hunter Times building.  Donated by the Fargo Forum, it was one of twenty-seven used where Linotype operators sat typing out daily issues.  Digital equipment came into being and made such contraptions obsolete.  What enabled newspaper publishers to move westward in large numbers was the invention of the small, simple Washington press that could be dismantled and hauled about.  The story of Clement Lounsberry and his Bismarck Tribune is a good illustration.  When the first train of the Northern Pacific arrived there in May, 1873, his portable hand press was in the freight car.  He didn’t waste a lot of time putting it to use since the first issue of that paper came out July 11.

Lounsberry sent his reporter Mark Kellogg along with Custer on the ill-fated trip to the Little Big Horn.  Apparently, Kellogg’s body was not mutilated like the others which prompted Lounsberry to write that the Indians “learned to respect this humble shover of the lead pencil.”  Though one observer stated it was probably due to the fact he fell early and away from the others and had not been noticed.  Lounsberry, a Civil War veteran with combat experience, and one of the typical publishers of the day, exhibited toughness to survive the negative kickback encountered in his use of free speech.  Another razor-edged editor claimed he needed to be a “pistol-packin’ pencil pusher” in his community.  

Today we recognize many historical names who’ve earned recognition in journalism: Horace Greeley, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Bat Masterson…  Bat Masterson?  The gunfighter and sheriff in Dodge City, Kansas who was involved in several notable shootouts?  Yes, that one. His popular column “Masterson’s Views on Timely Topics” appeared from 1903 until 1921 in the New York Daily Telegraph and concerned sports in general and boxing in particular.  

We’ve heard so much use of the term “fake news” over the last few years; however, I believe responsible journalism prevails.  When the profession recognized the need to establish standards and training, they established the first school of journalism in 1908 at the University of Missouri, and in 1912 Joseph Pulitzer made a gift of $2 million to establish the Columbia Journalism School.  

To conclude, if the question arises, with all the internet and television news available, do we still need newspapers.  This answer comes quickly: yes, at the present time you are reading this one.