Colorado—The Bright Romance of American HistoryGrable, F. C.
History
Colorado—The Bright Romance of American History
Grable, F. C.
Colorado -- History
We imagine that he looks again and sees the electric button pressed;
the cogs of the great press begin to turn, the wheels to move, the
different colored inks high up in the metal troughs to flow over the
rollers that bathe the type, the immense roll of paper begins to
unreel into the machine and over the cylinders which are each covered
with their mold of type. Faster, faster, as the race horse speeds to
victory. Faster, faster, as the colossal machine bends to its work.
The folding attachment inside is busy doubling the paper into its
proper shape as each printed page flies past. The knife descends like
a flash, quicker than thought, and separates the page from the one
following. Faster, faster, the completed folded papers drop from the
machine into the endless chain elevator that sends them to the
distributing room overhead at the rate of forty thousand an hour,
where the restless newsboys are crowding, where the express deliveries
are waiting, where the warning signals of the locomotives at the depot
are heard, ready to hurry away with the papers over the mountains,
across the plains, into the valleys--the news for each and all, news
of the communities, news of the states, news of the world--this, this
is the present-day experiences of the present century's civilization,
the finest the world has ever seen, and which William Byers may have
seen in the mirage, but which he did not live to see in its perfected
form.
He came at a time known as the "days of the reformation," when a
handful of peace-loving citizens of Denver were trying to bring order
out of that chaotic condition that seems to belong to a settlement on
the frontier made up of people from all over the world attracted by
the lure of gold. He was the pioneer editor of Colorado, and became
spokesman through his paper for those associated with him in the
preservation of property rights and in the protection of life. He was
fearless as a writer and unsparing in his criticism of the lawless in
the community. His editorial in the first issue of his paper shows the
character of the man:
"We make our debut in the far West, where the sunny mountains look
down upon us in the hottest summer's day as well as in the winter's
cold. Here, where a few months ago the wild beasts and wilder Indians
held undisputed possession, where now surges the advancing wave of
Anglo-Saxon enterprise and civilization, where soon we fondly hope
will be erected a great and powerful state, another empire in the
sisterhood of empires. Our course is marked out, we will adhere to it,
with steadfast and fixed determination, to speak, write, and publish
the truth, and nothing but the truth, let it work us weal or woe."
_Horace W. Tabor._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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