Take Your Home Paper

Now and then a farmer calls in to buy a copy of the weekly GAZETTE.  When interrogated why he does not subscribe for it, the reply is, that he already takes the New York Tribune, and cannot afford to take two papers.  Why does he take the Tribune in preference?  Because he can get more reading matter for the same money!  It is the quantity and not the quality of matter such persons regard.  It is true, and they admit the fact, the news they get through their home paper is that which interests them most, both [pecuniary] and as citizens of Iowa; but then there is so much more reading in the Tribune than in the GAZETTE!  Now we venture to say there is not more reading matter in the Tribune which they will peruse than there is in the GAZETTE.  What does a man know of the prowess of the Iowa troops, or anything else concerning our State, who looks to an Eastern paper for his information?  Literally nothing.  He sees a great many things there, given more in detail, but which as a citizen of the west do not concern him, and are not worth the time he devotes to their perusal.  In regard to late news, he is behind the times, as since the advent of the telegraph a man must look to his home paper, if in receipt of dispatches, for the latest news.  It is false economy for a Western man to patronize an Eastern in preference to a home paper; and no matter how insignificant may be the proportions of the latter, if at all well conducted, no farmer but receives a rich return for the small amount it costs him per annum.  Farmers, if you would regard your own interest, and that of the locality in which you are placed, take your home paper, and be sure that you pay for it.  The latter is a piece of advice that, we are happy to say, the GAZETTE has no occasion in its own behalf, to offer.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, February 28, 1862