Polk Family Papers Box 9 Document 71

POLK letters: August 30, 1860

1860, Aug. 30

T.S.W. Scott, Raleigh, N.C., to Bishop Polk, re: the printing and paper problems of the Church Intelligencer; a discussion of its purpose and type of appeal, recommending that it remain a paper for the unintelligent masses. 6 pp. (1 mss. original and 1 Photostat copy.)

Raleigh Aug 30th 1860.

My dear Bishop Polk,

I thank you very kindly for your last letter, though absence and a great press of unavoidable letter writing have prevented my replying to it at an earlier date. I requested your advice and you have given it to me frankly - just as if you had full confidence in the sincerity of the request. Thank you for the compliment and rest assured I shall try to profit by it. Your letter has been of good service to me already, in helping me to keep the paper worker, and printer, as far as may be up to Contract. The present contract specifies expressly that the paper on which the Intelligencer is printed shall be in every respect fully equal to that of the Church

Journal. So I just posted your letter at the manufacturer, which seemed to have quite a marvellous {sic} effect from the way in which promises of better things to come poured out instantly. The printers also promis ed improvement upon a similar appreciation of the letter, but I fear there is a radical difficulty in the workmen-they are not masters of their trade. I am promised a first rate pressman from New York and was looking for him daily. I think the paper is very nearly up to the requir ed mark. In fact the workmen confess the imperfection of the printing lies in them, the rollers, the weather which affects some part of the Press etc. etc. not in the paper.

With regard to the suggestion thrown out by me respecting the appointment of the Editor, it is a matter I care not one straw about, farther than

I think from what has been said and written to me, it may affect the circu lation and usefulness of the Paper. There always will be men, who are fond of seeing mountains in molehills. For my part, had I no pecuniary interest in it, I should only feel the more confidence, on all accounts in it, that there are two of our best and ablest Bishops at its head, who will countenance & support the Paper no longer than it is sound and useful. The complaint is that we are sailing under colors not our own - that we are fettered etc. etc. but I am free to admit that as far as I have heard anything to do with the matter of the Paper I am quite conscious of any flattering or restraint whatever. Still I am not one of the men naturally inclined to see mountains!

I have been writing pretty freely this morning to Bishop Elliott as to the wisdom and expediency of removing the Paper farther South. One thing I beg leave to suggest to yourself. It is in regard to its contents. It has been remarked to me that the articles might be more thoughtful and etc. This might be well for clergymen, and men of education generally, but it is my own opinion decidedly that anything the Paper might gain in that way would be far more than lost in destroying, just as far, its present adaptation to the great common mind of the Church. Most of our readers are ladiesmany are old ladies-young persons-men of all grades and considerations, who have no taste for labored disquisitions - no power of research. It is upon this great