The Press, the great luminary of liberty, is the handmaid of progress. It heralds its doings and makes known its discoveries. It is its advance courier, whose coming is eagerly looked for and whose arrival is hailed with joy, as it brings tidings of its latest achievements. The press prepares the way and calls mankind to witness the approaching procession of the triumphal car of progress, as it passes on down through the vale of the future. When the car of progress stops, the press will cease, and the intellectual and mental world will go down in darkness. The press is progress, and progress the press. So intimately are they related and their interests interwoven, that one cannot exist without the other. Progress made no advancement against the strong tides of ignorance and vice in the barbaric past until it called to its aid the press. In it is found its greatest discovery, its most valuable aid, and the true philosopher's stone.

The history of this great industry dates back to the fifteenth century. Its discovery and subsequent utility resulted from the following causes and in the following manner: Laurentius Coster, a native of Haerlem, Holland, while rambling through the forest contiguous to his native city, carved some letters on the bark of a birch tree. Drowsy from the relaxation of a holiday, he wrapped his carvings in a piece of paper and lay down to sleep. While men sleep progress moves, and Coster awoke to discover a phenomenon, to him simple, strange and suggestive. Dampened by the atmospheric moisture, the paper wrapped about his handiwork had taken an impression from them, and the surprised burgher saw on the paper an inverted image of what he had engraved on the bark. The phenomenon was suggestive, because it led to experiments that resulted in establishing a printing office, the first of its kind in the old Dutch town. In this office John Gutenberg served a faithful and appreciative apprenticeship, and from it, at the death of his master, absconded during a Christmas festival, taking with him a considerable portion of the type and apparatus. Gutenberg settled in Mentz, where he won the friendship and partnership of John Faust, a man of sufficient means to place the enterprise on a secure financial basis. Several years later the partnership was dissolved, because of a misunderstanding. Gutenberg then formed a partnership with a younger brother who had set up an office at Strasburg, but had not been successful, and becoming involved in lawsuits, had fled from that city to join his brother at Mentz. These brothers were the first to use metal types. Faust, after his dissolution with Gutenberg, took into partnership Peter Schoeffer, his servant and a most ingenious printer. Schoeffer privately cut matrices for the whole alphabet. Faust was so pleased that he gave Schoeffer his only daughter in marriage. These are the great names in the early history of printing, and each is worthy of special honor.

Coster's discovery of wood blocks or plates, on which the page to be printed, were engraved, was made sometime between 1440 and 1450, and Schoeffer's improvement, casting the type by means of matrices was made about 1456. For a long time printing was dependent upon most clumsy apparatus. The earliest press had a contrivance for running the forms under the point of pressure by means of a screw. When the pressure was applied the screw was loosened, the form withdrawn and the sheet removed. Improvements were made upon these crude beginnings from time to time, until the hand press now in use are models of simplicity, durability and execution. In 1814 steam was first supplied to cylinder presses by Frederick Konig, a Saxon genius, and the subsequent progress of steam- printing has been so remarkable as to almost justify a belief in its absolute perfection. Indeed, to appreciate the improvement in presses alone, one ought to be privileged to stand a while by the pressman who operated the clumsy machine of Gutenberg, and then he should step into one of the well appointed modern printing offices of our larger cities, where he could notice the roll of dampened paper entering the great power presses, a continuous sheet, and issuing therefrom as newspapers ready for the carrier or express. The Romans, in the time of the emperors, had periodicals, notices of passing events, compiled and distributed. These daily events were the newspapers of that age. In 1536 the first newspapers of modern times was issued at Venice, but governmental bigotry compelled its circulation in manuscript form.

In 1663 the Public Intelligencer was published in London, and is credited with being the first English paper to attempt the dissemination of general information. The first American newspaper was the Boston News Letter, whose first issue was made April 24, 1704. It was a half sheet, twelve inches by eight, with two columns to the page. John Campbell, the postmaster, was the publisher. The Boston Gazette made its first appearance December 21, 1719, and the American Weekly, at Philadelphia, December 22, 1719. In 1776, the number of newspapers published in the colonies was thirty-seven; in 1828, the number had increased to eight hundred and fifty-two, and at the present time not less than eight thousand newspapers are supported by our people. Journalism, by which is meant the compiling of passing public events, for the purpose of making them more generally known and instructive, has become a powerful educator. Experience has been its only school for special training, its only text for study, its only test for theory. It is scarcely a profession, but is advancing rapidly toward that dignity. A distinct department of literature has been assigned to it. Great editors are writing autobiographies and formulating their methods and opinions; historians are rescuing from oblivion the every day life of deceased journalists; reprints of interviews with famous journalists, touching the different phases of their profession, are deemed worthy of publication in book form. Leading universities have contemplated the inauguration of courses of study specially designed to fit men and women for the duties of the newspaper sanctum. These innovations are not untimely, since no other class of men are so powerful for good or ill as editors. More than any other class they form public opinion while expressing it, for most men but echo the sentiments of favorite journalists. Even statesmen, ministers and learned professors not unfrequently get their best thoughts and ideas from the papers they read.

BATES COUNTY STANDARD.

The first newspaper published in Bates County was the Bates County Standard, which was established in the fall of 1858. It was owned by a company of men of whom Jacob D. Wright, who is now living near the town of Butler, was a member. It was published at Butler from the fall of 1858 until the fall of 1860, its editor being N. L. Perry, when it was succeeded by the

WESTERN TIMES,
with W. Pat Green, editor. The Times was published until April, 1861, when it was discontinued. The West Point Banner in its issue of May 15, 1861, refers to the Western Times as follows:

Suspended. -- We learn with regret that the Western Times published at Butler has succumbed to the pressure of the times and has suspended publication. It is hardly necessary to mention here that no paper can keep up without its patrons meet their indebtedness promptly.

The Standard and Times were Democratic in politics.

WEST POINT BANNER.

The West Point Banner was the second oldest paper that was published in the county. The first number was issued in September, 1860 by the West Point Newspaper Company, on every Wednesday morning.

Through the kindness of a gentleman now residing in Kansas we were shown a copy of the Banner dated May 15, 1861. The paper in size is about eighteen by twenty-four inches, and contains twenty-eight columns. The editor was T. H. Starnes, who resided at Butler, and was a law partner at the time, of J. T. Smith. The paper was issued until sometime during the fall of 1861, when the type and press were destroyed by Union soldiers, who burned the town of West Point. Our country had just plunged into a great war, which was the all absorbing theme throughout the Union, and as the editorial in that paper reflects the sentiments of the people generally, who sympathized with the south we here reproduce it.

"What is to be the final result of the present disturbance in the United States is a solemn inquiry in the minds of millions of men and women, who are eagerly watching and noting events as they pass rapidly on. That our country is divided, no sane man can for a moment doubt; that disunion is a reality and not a seeming or whimsical temporary division, as some would have us believe, is also a fact that all honest men must admit, all their wishing to the contrary notwithstanding. The causes which have led to this unhappy division, have been so much discussed, and so much has been said on the subject, that people have become tired of reading newspaper articles on that subject, neither does it matter at the present time, in a practical sense, what the causes were which have acted so powerfully on the minds of the southern people, as to justify them in their own minds, and induce them to take the step they have.

Our people are a jealous people, and when they find the seed of oppression sown and cultivated by the government under which they live they feel it their duty to resist it by electing such men to office as will respect their rights. When a majority of the people becomes oppressive and totally disregards the rights and privileges of the minority, it becomes the duty of such minority to withdraw, resist or secede from the majority. Whenever a majority pass such laws as will give themselves privileges and immunities they deny to the minority, their acts become oppressive and cannot be tolerated by an honorable minority. Thus it was with the thirteen colonies at the commencement of the Revolution, when the government of Great Britain excluded the colonies from privileges which they retained to themselves. The colonists, after seeking redress in every legal and constitutional manner known to an honorable and free people without obtaining satisfaction, at last seceded from the government under which they had lived for so many years by passing that great and glorious secession ordinance, the Declaration of Independence, for which they were called rebels by the loyal subjects of Great Britain, in America as well as in England. The first effort of the king, from whose government they had seceded, was to send out 17,000 men to coerce them, the secession rebels, into subjection. Failing in his first attempt to awe them into subjection, he sent messengers amongst the savages of the west, and raised them against the colonies to wage a bloody and indiscriminate war against the rebels, without distinction of age, sex or condition. How very similar are the present disturbances in this country at this time. A party has taken possession of the government with principles, as avowed by themselves, at war with the spirit and letter of the constitution, claiming to themselves privileges which they declare shall not be extended to the people of the South. They have set forth in their platform of principles that the South shall not enjoy any of the territory now belonging to the United States; that property of certain kind, if escaping from its owner and getting into a northern state, shall not be returned, &c., &c.

Hence, the South, seeing in the course pursued by the leaders in the Northern States, a repetition of the old principles practiced by the government of Great Britain towards the colonies, and having, like the colonies, petitioned through their representatives in congress, through the public press and otherwise, for their constitutional rights, without receiving anything but "insult added to injury," and finding that they must submit to degradation, insult and injury, or withdraw their connection from a people with whom they could not live on terms of equality. They (nine of the Southern States) have withdrawn their connection from the government, wherein they could not obtain any assurance of redress for their grievances. Now that they have withdrawn, we see Abraham Lincoln, like old King George III, calling out an army of 75,000 men in the first place, but fearing that not sufficient, it is reported that he now wants 200,000 to coerce and whip into subjection those states which have yet some of the blood of '76 and enough of the spirit of their fathers, to throw off the yoke of oppression, let it come from what source it may. Not satisfied with all the help that can be obtained from the loyal states, we now hear threats that the negroes of the South are to be raised against their masters and mistresses, and it is calculated by the party in power at Washington, that by the help of the African race in the South, that short work will be made and the disaffected states will be compelled to abandon their idea of independence, humble themselves at Abraham's feet, overwhelmed with degradation and disgrace, acknowledge their slaves their equals, abolition thieves their superiors, and accept peace on whatever terms it may be dictated them. So old King George thought our fathers would do; but O! how sadly was he deceived, and we venture to predict that old tyrant, Lincoln, will be as badly deceived.

BUTLER.

In speaking of a visit to Butler, the editor says: "We paid a visit to Butler, our neighboring town, last week. Our good friends of Butler are up to the true spirit of Missourians, for we see that the flag of the Confederate states waves proudly from a pole one hundred feet in height, in the public square in front of the court house. Long may it wave."

THE BATES COUNTY RECORD.

The first paper published in Butler after the war was the Bates County Record. D. K. Abeel, was the editor and proprietor, and began publication about the first of July. In November, 1867, Abeel sold his paper to O. D. Austin, who has continued it right along from that date. The Record is Republican in politics.

THE BATES COUNTY DEMOCRAT,

established September 16, 1869, by a company composed of leading Democrats in Butler, and edited by Feeley & Rosser. A part of the stock of the paper was purchased in the spring of 1871, by Wade & Scudder, who took possession of the office, July 28, 1871, with N. A. Wade as editor, Mr. Scudder afterward being associate editor. The firm of Wade & Scudder existed until January 27, 1882, when Scudder sold his interest to Wade, since which time, N. A. Wade, has been the sole editor and proprietor.

BUTLER WEEKLY TIMES.

This was an eight columned folio, and was established December 11, 1878, by D. G. Newsom and ---- Lawhorn. Lawhorn withdrew after two or three months, leaving Newsom alone, who continued to publish the paper until April 21, 1879, when Charles T. McFarland bought an interest in the same. The firm of Newsom & McFarland ran the paper until January 1, 1880, when McFarland purchased Newsom's interest, since which time he has been the sole proprietor. In May (26) 1881, McFarland began the issuing of the Daily Times, which was discontinued on the 5th of ----, 1882. The Weekly Times has, however, continued right along, and was enlarged to an eight-page, forty-eight columned paper, in December, 1881. The patent outside was used until October, 1880, since which time the paper has been wholly printed at home. It is Democratic in politics.

THE MONTHLY TIMES

survived only a few months. It was started in ----, and was edited by Frank Whetmore.

BATES COUNTY REPUBLICAN.

The first number of the Republican was issued May 4, 1882, at Butler, by a company incorporated April 25, 1882, with John Brand as editor. The company was composed of J. M. Mays, A. B. Cline, E. Hand, F. R. Weaver and J. M. Patty who were the incorporators. Brand died June 17, 1882, and was succeeded by Edgar R. Beach who is now the editor. The stockholders of the paper number eighty and are located in the different townships of Bates County.

THE ADRIAN ADVERTISER.

The Adrian Advertiser was established September 9, 1882, at Adrian, by E. D. Kirkpatrick, editor and proprietor. It is a weekly paper and Democratic in politics.

RICH HILL GAZETTE.

The first number of the Rich Hill Gazette was issued August 5 1880, by Huckeby and Eldridge (George P. Huckeby and Frank Eldridge). After remaining for about one year, under this management, as a Republican paper, it changed hands, Eldridge and Dell Cobb being the purchasers, who made it a Greenback paper. Cobb bought from Eldridge and sold an interest to E. T. Kirkpatrick. These parties sold their interest to W. H. Sperry and R. B. Parrack who now control it as a Greenback paper.

THE WESTERN ENTERPRISE.

The Western Enterprise was established September 16, 1881, on individual capital by F. J. Wiseman and G. M. Magill. Its declaration of principles were independent democratic in politics; honesty and capability in office; and a zealous advocacy of the general interests of the city of Rich Hill. The Enterprise was stubbornly opposed by two older papers established with the city, but a close adherence to business and a straight course in politics soon won a good patronage and made it the favorite local paper of the city. Financially and otherwise the business soon surpassed the expectations of the publishers and they found it necessary to provide permanent and convenient rooms, and accordingly in March, 1882, they purchased the present commodious ' building on Sixth Street, where the office is now located. By this time Rich Hill had developed into a city of 4,000 people, and its political strength was unknown. Three parties were claiming it. The Enterprise carried the straight Democratic ticket through the campaign against the other two organs and carried the city Democratic by 230 plurality. The office has a good job department and does a large amount of general job work and commercial printing. The Western Enterprise has the full patronage of the Democratic party and is the official organ of the city of Rich Hill. The publishers are constantly putting in new material and are keeping the office abreast of the times.

THE MINING REVIEW.

Thomas Irish, of Carroll County, Missouri, having learned of the new town of Rich Hill, came down in September with a view of locating in the practice of his profession, attorney at law; but being an old newspaper man, and seeing what he thought a fine opening for a newspaper, looked over the field thoroughly, and being convinced of the superior advantages of the town and its bright prospects, made haste to establish a first-class newspaper, and commenced at once the erection of the Review building, on the corner of Walnut and Sixth Streets, 24x44, and put in a Campbell country cylinder press and a full newspaper and job office, and on the 29th of October issued the first number of the Mining Review, an edition of 8,000 copies, containing a concise history of Bates County and her towns, with a circular map showing the location of Rich Hill. This edition of the Review was widely distributed, and at once brought this new and wonderful town to the front. During the first year the Mining Review was published as an eight-column paper and its circulation rapidly increased, and was from the start, and is to-day, the best patronized as an advertising medium of any local paper in the Southwest. In the spring of 1881 the Review issued a supplement edition of 25,000 copies on flatcap, containing on one side a fine sectional map of Bates County, and on the other a history of Bates County and her towns, with desirable information regarding its coal lands, etc. This edition was distributed by the Missouri Pacific and the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad Companies, the State Bureau of Immigration, and by the citizens of Rich Hill, and many copies found their way into every state and territory, and also in Europe, and proved another lever to boost along the new town. The second volume of this paper was enlarged to nine columns, and in December, 1882, a steam engine was added, and to-day the Mining Review is one of the best appointed local newspaper offices in the Southwest.

The Mining Review is a liberal, outspoken, progressive Democratic newspaper, and has done much good for this magic city, and is looked to for mining and railroad news by the leading friends of the trade in the East and the large cities of the West.

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