Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Our storied adventure

Before the lights go out, one last call to action

Rocky Mountain News

Published February 27, 2009 at 3:05 a.m.

Text size  

More Editorials

More stories »

We've been publishing our opinions - speaking now for a long line of Rocky editors and writers - for nearly 150 years. You didn't really think we were going to turn down the volume on our final day, did you?

Or take refuge in maudlin musings?

Of course not. We've still got a trumpet and we're going to sound it. One last time.

Editors at this newspaper "have been kidnapped, shot at, caned, pistol-whipped, hanged in effigy, and immortalized in stained glass," recalled Robert L. Perkin in The First Hundred Years, his tale of the Rocky's history through 1959. They've "built commonwealths, founded universities, climbed mountains and been clouted from the rear while walking to work."

Now, it seems, we've been clouted by a recession, an online revolution in publishing and advertising, and changing consumer tastes. You could say it's sad, and you'd be right, but you could also say that it's remarkable how long the Rocky survived given the dynamic swirl of American capitalism. We prefer to dwell on the second sentiment - no doubt in part because it meshes with our view of this state's potentially boundless future and the expectation that better days await even most of those hit hardest by the current economic free fall. Yes, even refugees from the Rocky.

How could we be pessimistic about Coloradans' prospects, after all, given our knowledge of what people here have overcome in the past? Drop in at the Colorado History Museum at 13th and Broadway in Denver to see what we mean. Its current special exhibit, Imagine a Great City: Denver at 150, reminds visitors how the fledgling town survived floods, flames, "a grasshopper plague," isolation, the Panic of 1893, the loss of the transcontinental railroad, and much more. By today's standards, average Coloradans in the 19th and early 20th centuries were dirt poor, with much more reason to fear the future. Yet they did not. They dreamed and labored and built and created - and bequeathed to us a large part of what we enjoy today.

Still, Colorado's further progress is by no means guaranteed. It is not a Western birthright. It will be ensured only if this state continues to attract and retain hard-working, inventive people who have reason to believe they are free to chart their own destiny, and who raise families who develop the same attachment to the state.

To achieve this goal, Coloradans must maintain this state's reputation as a good place to do business while preserving its natural beauty. People want to live in Colorado because of its openness and opportunity - provided in large part by a diverse and thriving private sector - but also because of the stunning physical environment. Yet even if Coloradans manage to protect this state's entrepreneurial culture and its open spaces, it won't be enough. They need to address other issues, too, three of which are worth brief stops on this, our final editorial tour.

* Educational failure. Roughly one in four Colorado students drops out of school. Many others graduate with literacy and computational skills far below grade level; nearly a third of those who enroll in state colleges need remedial help. All this is occurring, meanwhile, in an age when sophisticated skills are more important than ever and Colorado faces a special burden of educating and assimilating a growing immigrant population. Additional money may help, but the state mainly needs better standards, more accountability and greater educational choice. It needs leaders who consistently put the interests of students first, even when that means upsetting the longstanding habits of teachers or administrators.

* Budgeting time bomb. Colorado's Constitution includes spending caps and mandates that pull in opposite directions. If voters don't agree to revise them, a bout of high inflation could devastate nearly every program except K-12 schools. Even if inflation is held in check, the conflicting mandates will gradually sap higher-ed's funding and possibly that of other programs, too.

* Infrastructure erosion. A thriving economy depends on mobile citizens and goods, yet Colorado's highways and byways are slowly falling victim to lack of maintenance and a failure to boost capacity. The often-congested I-70 corridor between Denver and the high country is only the most visible product of this neglect. Like it or not, Coloradans must agree on new ways to fund their transportation system based on various user fees - including tolls.

One way or another, we're willing to bet, Coloradans will rise to the occasion and meet these challenges - and others that none of us foresees. For as long as this newspaper has existed, people hereabouts have taken their destinies into their own hands rather than passively sit by while events overwhelmed them.

We don't mean to romanticize this state's history, which includes its share of cruelty and oppression. But the same chronicle that includes the Ludlow massacre and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, has also been ennobled by examples of great courage and compassion, such as Gov. Ralph Carr's declaration on behalf of Japanese-Americans during World War II that "If you harm them, you must harm me."

This newspaper has recorded all of the milestones and commented on most, but now its part in the saga must end. For as long as we live, we will be grateful that we were able to contribute to the Rocky's rich legacy.

Comments

  • February 27, 2009

    9:02 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    BuffDriver writes:

    At last liberalsim is killing the print media. San Fran Chronicle, NY Times, RMN....getting rid of Littwin is worth it all.

  • February 27, 2009

    9:15 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    blacksho89 writes:

    Explain how "liberalism" is killing the print media?

    Oh, and Littwin got a job upstairs. Happier, now?

  • February 27, 2009

    10:10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    citizen509 writes:

    Thanks for the "think". Whether you have written views that I agree or disagree with, you have always given me an opportunity to think. To think about things outside my immediate world. A small world allowed to grow by exposure to your points of view. I have had an opportunity to travel and live in different parts of our wonderful country and abroad and when coming home, never did I feel I was losing touch with those issues that you should always give thought to and if needed action.

  • February 27, 2009

    11:16 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Preserve writes:

    I heard Judy Woodruff of the McNeil-Lehrer News speak at a Channel 6 fund-raiser recently. Someone asked her for her opinion on the national newspaper situation. She said – almost vehemently - that newspapers, not TV or electronic media, are the heart and soul of a proper democracy and that as a democracy we cannot get along without a proper and healthy newspaper system. Some want to get rid of Litwin - I would get rid is Rosen and Carroll with their knee-jerks reactions against science and healthy world; but in truth I would much rather have Litwin, Rosen and Carroll than none of them. Mr. Temple will be missed.

  • February 27, 2009

    11:55 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Watchful_Eye writes:

    How sad! I will miss my daily RMN updates hitting my e-mail. Living here in Alaska, the RMN was my link to the 'happenings' were my brothers, their families, and other extended family members live. Although I didn't always agree with the articles, they were always well written. And the photos...absolutely awesome! Even here in Alaska, you were 'My Rocky', too. My prayers are that every one find new employment soon.

  • March 2, 2009

    9:13 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    arby writes:

    I find it hard to believe. This is the end of an era! The RMN has been published for 149 years. Do you know how long that is? Longer than Denver has been a city. Yet some of you jerk offs still have to put forthe your duffus opinions. Some of you buttheads are unbeleiveable.