Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/450

410 "An ideal paper, broadly speaking, is impractical. The people can endow a newspaper. No one else can. There are too many men of many minds in this as in every other land to make an ideal paper possible. Oatmeal may be the ideal breakfast food from a dietetic point of view, but it never has been universally adopted and never will be until all palates are set in the same gustatory key. So what might be the ideal mental oatmeal to some would prove caviar to the general multitude. Even class and technical papers, which one would think should speak with unanimity and authority, do not long remain as oracles in sole possession of their fields. Opposition develops and competitors appear expressing divergent views. One man's physical food is another man's poison, and until all think alike the ideal paper cannot come into being. And may it never come, for when all men think alike the spice of life will be gone, initiative will be smothered, and the world will be reduced to a dull level of mediocrity."

The nearest that the endowed newspaper has come to a realization in America was the partial promise of Andrew Carnegie to be one of ten men to finance such a venture. It would take just about ten men of Mr. Carnegie's wealth to establish successfully an endowed daily newspaper.

The most pretentious attempt to publish a municipal newspaper was tried in Los Angeles, California, in 1912, when The Municipal News was started to publish the facts concerning the city's business and to give fully and accurately the arguments of contending sides. It was published weekly and circulated sixty thousand copies which were distributed by newsboys every Wednesday afternoon absolutely free throughout the residence sections of the city. One copy was left at every house regardless of whether the resident desired the paper or not. The paper was under the control of the Municipal Newspaper Commission, composed of three citizens who served without pay, and who were appointed by the mayor subject to confirmation by the city council. Each commissioner held office for four years, subject to recall by the voters at any time and to removal at any time by the mayor, subject to the referendum. Special columns were set aside solely for the use of political parties which furnished the items for insertion. Financial support came from two sources; first,