What About This . . .?
By Wayne William Cipriano
Do you enjoy as much as I reading the excerpts taken from previous issues of the Douglas County Herald printed twenty-five to one hundred twenty-five years ago? Following the development of families, the county and the town, the government, the attitudes, and the reactions to world and national events over the years is very interesting. Even more, I like reading the way the newspaper was written for a rural community where education was necessarily limited by geography and technology restraints but which evidently desired a well-constructed literary experience.
And every now and then I find something that amazes me.
How proud the Douglas County Herald should be, as well as the community for which it is written, that an editorial comment such as the one that follows was run in the paper one hundred twenty-five years ago on Sept. 16, 1887:
“The St. Louis Browns, the champion baseball club of the world has refused to play the Cuban Giants on account of their color. They cannot be the champion club of the world without honestly contesting for the championship regardless of race or color.”
As an athlete, a resident of Douglas County, a Herald contributor, and an American citizen I was proud to read that excerpt in the September 20, 2012 issue.
And I am proud all over again to rewrite it.
