Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/345

 CHAPTER XXII

IN THE EDITORIAL CHAIR

Great is Journalism. Is not every Able Editor a Ruler of the World, being a persuader of it ; though self-elected yet sanctioned by the sale of his Numbers ? Thomas Carlyle

MR. TILAK became the declared editor of" the "*^' Kesari on 22nd October 1887, and of the Mahratta on 3rd Spetember 1891. Since then, he conducted these journals as proprietor till the last, and though, the editorship was occasionally transferred to others, still he supplied the necessary inspiration, except during the intervals when he was a guest of His Majesty's gaols. From the very beginning, he neglected the Mahratta, Indeed, it may be said, he never liked journaHsm in Enghsh. He believed only in the vernacular as an instrument of national awakening. Hence he never cared to turn the Mahratta into a daily newspaper. English weeklies in India have always been a source of financial embarrassment to the conductors, and the Mahratta was no exception to this rule. At the time of Mr. Tilak's death, the circulation of the Mahratta stood at about 2000.

With the Kesari he was in his element. A weekly paper, now with a circulation of over 35,000, it has moulded the national life of Maharashtra during the last 30 years. The Kesari, as the name indicates, stands for manli-