(Printed in the last edition of the Emmitsburg Chronicle, June 28, 1918)
A Real Loss To Maryland Journalism
(Baltimore Sun)
The Emmitsburg Chronicle goes out of existence tomorrow. After an existence of forty years, it will occupy a lot in the populous graveyard of the fourth estate. In the twenty-eighth year of its life, just twelve years ago, the Chronicle was taken over by Sterling Galt, a man who loved the smell of printer’s ink and preferred the life of a working, fighting
country editor to the daily grind of the metropolitan newspaper offers. He was possessed of many other fine qualities of the old-time newspaperman and his individuality soon began to express itself in every line of the paper. His artistic typographical tastes, his sense of humor, his cleverness as a writer, his stand for good government and his youthful enthusiasm and energy made the
Chronicle stand out among the weeklies of the country as a model for many of his contemporaries. The old town of Emmitsburg, and the state of Maryland will sustain a real loss when the Chronicle gives up its place among the things that are.
(Carol Record, Taneytown)
It is difficult to properly estimate, or characterize just what the passing out of existence a long-established weekly newspaper means. It is much more than merely a regrettable occurrence. It is a community loss difficult to measure. Perhaps it may be a condemnation of the community itself resting against it as a sign of unappreciative this- or worse.
Whatever the cause, or causes, they be they should not be accepted unless absolutely insurmountable; not until every possible community effort has been made to overcome them.
The announcement of the discontinuance of the Emmitsburg Chronicle - a paper that has been in existence for forty years - cannot be passed over as a mere news item, the outcome of conditions brought about by the war. The question is a deeper one than that for the town and community to consider - for many other towns and communities to consider.
We do not know local conditions, nor how loyal the paper was supported, therefore do not presume to lecture Emmitsburgian for lack of proper appreciation and support, but we do know that no town of its size - no such prosperous section as served by the Chronicle - can't afford to do without a newspaper, for long, and we trust that the suspension will be but a
brief one.
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It is rarely the case that any weekly paper, and printing business connected therewith, is given the support and consideration that it should receive. It gets too little credit for the hundreds of big favors and boost it gives, locally, every year without charge, and how it serves, profitably, its constituency, rather than itself.
Take our word for it, that those who in any way withhold their support from country newspapers, at this very serious period, are doing a very unwise and dangerous thing. There have been hundreds of suspensions within the past year - that of the Chronicle serving to bring the fact home to us, as a fact, and not as a "scare" story -and unless conditions change
for the better, there'll be hundreds of others, all community losses to a greater extent than private business losses.
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The intimation, even, that a newspaper may discontinue publication in a town -except, where the local field is fully occupied with one or more other papers - should call for a town meeting in which all should determine to remedy the situation responsible for the immediate discontinuation. If it be more local support, more pay for work, prompter pay for
services, an opportunity to supply needed help, it should be the public's resolve to supply the needful, for local paper is really a public local enterprise with everybody as an interested stockholder. It should be a matter of local interest, and pride, to keep its paper going and fully supported.
The death of a newspaper is equivalent to the death of a public benefactor. A voice and influence is stilled that we need, and profit by, more than we know. We are perhaps so accustomed to luxury of city daily papers, that we grow critical and contemptuous of the little home paper; but, after all, it is this same little home paper that is our neighbor and best
friend, when we sorely need one, and there is no other that can take its place. Give your home paper more support, in order that it may pay increased expenses and live!
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Editor’s Note: For the last ten years, thanks to the generosity of Eric and Audrey Glass, the last owners of the Emmitsburg Chronicle, I have had access to bound copies of the old Chronicles. Every year I would return the prior year’s book and retrieve the new years. In 2017 I came home with the 1917/18 volume, I never gave it a thought that come July of this
year I would be return that volume for the 1918/1919 volume. It was only as I was finishing this months 100 Years ago column that I realized I would not be returning with another volume.
While we will be able to continue with the 100 Years Ago column by accessing 100 year old copes of the Gettysburg Times and the Catoctin Clarion, we will sorely miss Sterling Galt’s "artistic typographical tastes, his sense of humor, his cleverness as a writer, his stand for good government and his youthful enthusiasm and energy [that] made the Chronicle stand
out among the weeklies of the country as a model for many of his contemporaries."
Because Galt understood the importance of capturing daily life in Emmitsburg, we know more about those who called Emmitsburg home 100 years ago then we know about those who call Emmitsburg home today.
In many ways, the closing of the Chronicle could not have come at a worse time. For four years this paper has recounted the events of Would War One as reported by the papers of the time – providing our readers an opportunity to learn about the war not through revisionist history texts, but from actual news reports read about the war as their great- great
grandparents had.
Knowing full well that in July 1918, the young men of Emmitsburg who had signed up to serve, finally started to see action, we were looking forward to publishing detailed biographies of those that would give up their lives, like Captain Henry Higbee, one of the youngest Captains in the U.S. Army at the time, and winner of decorations of valor, who on July 18,
was the first Emmitsburgian killed "somewhere in France."
Had the Chronicle still been printing, we would have known about Captain Henry Higbee Worthington. Instead, his sacrifice he has been relegated to the dustbin of history. To add insult to injury, his name doesn’t even appear on the Town’s WW1 honor rolls plaque. All we know about Worthington is from one line in a July 1918 Gettysburg Times, which reported:
"News of Captain Higbee’s death reached Emmitsburg Sunday night and caused widespread grief in that section of the county, where he was well known."
We don’t even have a photo of the first Emmitsburg to give his life for his county in WW1; all we have is a photo of his grave marker. Captain Worthington’s body was returned home in 1921 and he was buried with full military honors May 11, in Gettysburg. Sadly, that’s all we know about this man.
Nor do we know anything about Private Martin Luther Hahn, the second Emmitsburgian killed in France. There is nothing in any paper other then notice that "his Grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Ovelman of near Four Points, received word of her grandson’s death."
Because Emmitsburg was not served by a paper that documented historical facts, subsequent groups and organizations made decisions based upon false information. Such as the American Legion which named their "new" building based upon the mistaken belief that Francis Elder, not Captain Henry Higbee Worthington, was the first Emmitsburgan to die in WW1. While
Elder did die in WW1, he was third member of our community, not the first, to do so. Had the Chronicle never closed it doors – this error in history would never have occurred.
In 1918, when Sterling Galt closed the Chronicle, Emmitsburg not only lost its paper, it lost its history.
