National Newspaper Week is coming soon, and if we tend to boast a little just now, perhaps we may be indulged. For the newspaper, which regularly devotes itself to bring news and the interpretation of news, has a message of its own. We believe that message worthy of some attention.

The American newspaper occupies a unique place in the world. Its freedom to print is guaranteed by the Constitution. It has been considered from the beginnings of the Republic and from even before that ‑ an essential instrument in the lives of the American people.

Its basic purpose has been and always will be the same: to tell the happenings of the day.

It has other important purposes, to entertain and amuse and to serve as a public forum.

Where newspapers are free from government restriction, as they are in the United States, you are free to select the reading matter of your choice. You are privileged to have a voice of protest.

The newspapers of America have set aside the week of October 15‑21, therefore, to call attention to the services they perform.

It is their constant hope that the reading public will continue to trust the integrity of their service. It is their constant effort to maintain the standards which have made this nation, more than all others, a nation of newspaper readers.

National Newspaper Week, therefore, is not an occasion for self‑praise by newspapers nearly so much as it is an occasion for self‑appraisement. It is a time for newspapers over the land to rededicate themselves to the trust placed in them by the vast, intelligent, progressive and enlightened American public