Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 14 text:

8 THE LOYOLA ANNUAL be it said to the credit of the American people, by only the inferior class. The evolution of the American Newspaper is the greatest wonder of the age. In 1800 there were 200 newspapers in the United States, in 1905 there were 22,512. In the place of the wooden press, which was hardly capable of printing 200 copies a day, we have the giant octuple Hoe press, belching forth 1,600 16-page papers a minute, or 26 papers every second. Thousands of correspondents and reporters with headquarters in every quarter of the globe have taken the place of the in- dividual editor, who in the early days was reporter and printer alike. The locomotive, steamship, telegraph, telephone and wireless telegraphy have taken the place of the sailing vessel, stage coach and mail carrier as a means of communicating nev s. Journalism of to-day is a business and the newspaper is the daily history of the world ; it is the educator of the people, and the rostrum of the sage and scientist, the author, the poet and the philosopher. As a profession the newspaper work stands among the highest in the land. The American News- paper represents the perfection of the art of printing, the cul- mination of all progress in science and in art, the embodiment of all advancement and development in the civilization of the world. It is the living monument to the mind of man, and especially to the American Nation, in whose midst it has been reared. V. J. Browr Jr., ’10.

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THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 7 eminent, has kept pace with our national development. Up to the time of the Mexican War no systematic means of re- porting news had been introduced, and the news obtained was for the most part voluntary contributions, which were often semi-editorial. When the Civil War began the papers were able to gather news much more easily than before. A wonder- ful industrial development had taken place in this country, and great opportunities for advancement had arrived. The conditions were ripe for the rapid development of the news- paper, and the expected happened. American genius and ingenuity answered the call of the American newspaper. Reporters were engaged to collect the daily news, special correspondents and artists were sent to the field of battle that the news might be as prompt and as ac- curate as possible. The telegraph became the common means of communication, and in less than a year the American news- paper had entered upon a new era of marvelous development. From this time invention kept pace with the increased demand for newspapers. To give a record of the development of the newspaper would be to review the unparalleled progress in all science and art. The type is now set by linotype with as much ease as one would run over the keys of a typewriter. The Hoe octuple press is one of the marvels of the age, print- ing, cutting, folding and counting ninety-six thousand four, six or eight page papers and twenty-four thousand sixteen- page papers per hour. But in speaking of the newspapers of to-day, it is impossible to forego mention of one of the most conspicuous phases of journalism in this country — the Yellow Journal. These papers are a source of a great deal of evil in the country, for they tend to lower the reader’s character by presenting to him in print news which is of itself objectionable or which is presented in an objectionable manner. These papers are read.

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THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 9 A Bmi Olnnqu Ht (A Story of a Mixed Marriage.) LOWERING sky of a monotonous gray, a broad expanse of heaving billows, a few sea gulls hovering aimlessly about, and a life-boat with the corpse of a woman and two living men stretched across its seats — such was the scene on the spot of the sinking of the “ Nova Scotia ” two hours after the catastrophe. One of the men was crushed about the body by the blow of a heavy spar, and did not have long to suffer on that dead waste of water. The other was so drenched to the skin that it would have been hard to dis- tinguish the Roman collar that was a part of his dress. The woman had been dragged into the life-boat already drowned by the pitiless waves. The dying man gazed on her sorrow- fully as he listened to the words of the priest: “ I baptized your wife before the ship went down, and in that horrible melee I heard all of her confession that was pos- sible before we were finally engulfed. In her last moments she recognized the truth of that church from which in life she had separated you. Will you, her husband, remain an apostate, when she who caused that apostasy has gone to her God in union with His church? ” The sufferer answered slowly and with some pain: ‘‘My wife was terrified by the presence of eternity. She shrank from the awful unknown, and in that moment of dread despair she clutched at this phantom forgiveness as she clutched at the wreckage in the vortex. It was fear that drove her to the compromise. I weep for her with all the intensity of hope- less grief, but I must not yield to her weakness. I am a man.”