the editor is the great american schoolmaster. none other is worthy to be compared with him.
he is about as numerous as all other teachers combined. his lessons are given more frequently, they last longer and they cost less than any others.
to him forty-nine students in every fifty are indebted for the only post-graduate course they ever receive. many others would have no education at all if it were not for him.
he does not always know his business so well that he could not know it better, but whatever he does know he imparts steadily, as well as some that he does not honor.
he is the only influence upon whom the public can absolutely depend to right any wrong which is being endured in spite of the efforts and oaths of legislators. when law is lazy and legislators are venal it is the editor, and the editor only, who comes to the relief of the public. the public will not do this for itself. it seems to consider{400} its duty done when it casts its ballot. more than half a century ago, when editors were not supposed to think their souls their own, the first napoleon said, “four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” napoleon certainly knew the value of bayonets.
the newspaper is the universal tribunal. it is an open court and there is justice of a sort for every one there at a trifling cost, one cent, two or three, as the case may be. the editor is the lawyer to whom the poor man must of necessity come. his court is one of equity, and it is to equity courts after all that all of us are inclined to resort when we insist upon a final decision.
he is the people’s advocate. before a law can be suggested in legislature or congress to undo a wrong or strengthen a right, the editor has already suggested it, debated both sides of it and rendered a decision, frequently a dozen or twenty decisions, which the public are inclined to admit or regard as accurate. he sometimes gets hold of a subject wrong end first, but he will submit to correction and improvement quicker than any judge or jury on record. he may not always admit that he has changed his mind, or that he turned over, or that he has turned his coat, but the change is there all the same, to any one who will read his paper.
he is the only biographer and historian which the mass of the people can read. and he gives{401}
image not available: gallery of fine arts.
gallery of fine arts.
more information for a given amount of money than the cheapest circulating library in the world.
the editor is also invaluable as a social barometer. as thackeray once said, “the newspaper is typical of the community in which it is encouraged and circulated; it tells its character as well as its condition.” this is awfully severe upon some communities, and upon the readers of certain papers, but it is none the less true.
unselfish thinkers, who are concerned chiefly for the good of the community, are always the men who esteem the editor most highly. wendell phillips, who for more than thirty years was abused by about half the editors of the land, said, “let me make the newspapers, and i care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in congress.” many years before, thomas jefferson, one of the founders of our government, said, “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, i should prefer the latter.”
the editor has improved more rapidly in the past twenty-five years than the representative of any other profession. theologians, physicians and lawyers all belong to schools of one sort or other, but of late years there has come up a new school of journalism which is called independent, and it has become so popular with{402} readers of newspapers that the number of professors and students in it are increasing at a most gratifying rate.
james gordon bennett, jr., explains one difference clearly when he says: “there is one grand distinction between journals—some are newspapers, some are organs. an organ is simply a daily pamphlet published in the interest of some party, or persons, or some agitation.” but the organs are not as numerous as they used to be.
who would have imagined any time before the late civil war that in any great political campaign preceding a general election in this country there would be scores and almost hundreds of independent newspapers. the time was when a newspaper could not exist unless it were a party or personal organ. but the newspaper has gradually risen from being a mere partisan or personal mouthpiece to being the mouthpiece of its own proprietor. at the present day no properly qualified journalist need attach himself to either party for financial reasons. if he is competent to make a good newspaper he is quite free to express his own opinions regardless of whom he may help or hurt, and the position is so delightful that a great many editors rush into it apparently for the mere pleasure of expressing their own opinions. during the last general election the scarcity of strong party organs, even in the largest{403} cities where they were supposed most to be needed, was a matter of general comment among practical politicians, and it is known that some newspapers changed hands solely for the purpose of being turned into party organs and that it was frequently so difficult to obtain control of existing journals that new ones had to be started for the sole purpose of supplying their respective parties with mouthpieces. this may be considered a compliment to the personal interest of the average journalist or to his personal ability. but, whichever it is, it is highly creditable to the profession, and it is a result which could not have been hoped for twenty-five years ago.
now-a-days every journalist of actual ability, no matter which party he belongs to, wishes that he may become owner of an independent newspaper. it is impossible for him not to see that the independent newspaper is not only the most quoted and the most talked about, but the most profitable. the paper which is read by both parties is sure of more subscribers, purchasers and advertisers than that which draws all its inspiration from the platform formed by a single convention. the independent editor hears himself quoted in congress by men of both parties; and these same men are quite likely to grumble and swear within a week to find themselves castigated by the same men whose words of wisdom they recently availed themselves of.{404}
the possibilities of the press for good, now that independence in journalism is practicable and also a business temptation, cannot be overestimated. public opinion can be created more rapidly by daily appeals and arguments which the newspaper reader can quietly look over by himself, pausing whenever he may like to think over what he has read, than anything that can appear in campaign speeches or magazine essays or books by the most noted writers and specialists. the editor, as a rule, has dropped the old stilted form of the essay, and puts his arguments in the ordinary colloquial form, with homely illustrations and forcible applications so far as words go. if it didn’t seem like complimenting him too highly and making him vain, it would not be unfair to say that his method is that in which the more valuable portion of the four gospels was written. he has learned that political power is no longer in the hands of the learned classes, but that all portions of the community feel and read and think; and that, as every man has a vote, the larger the audience he talks to, the simpler and clearer must be his arguments. consequently the press is giving us a class of debaters such as the world never knew before, and such as no parliamentary body in the world possesses even now or can hope to possess for some time to come.
with increased freedom from party reins and{405} ties, the editor is continually increasing and enlarging the interests to which he addresses himself. there is scarcely a newspaper in the united states at the present day which restricts itself entirely to political subjects. anything in the nature of human interests, social economies, moral reforms, and even the tastes and amusements of the people is a fair subject for the editor. he is not only a teacher; he is a preacher, and he preaches six days in the week instead of one. in fact, he frequently extends his ministrations into the seventh day also, to the great annoyance of preachers who occupy more dignified positions, but with not so large a congregation.
the press hereafter must be the principal moral, political and social influence of the country. there is no way to put it backward. it is being more and more trusted—more and more read—more and more depended upon to be equal to every emergency; and, to do it justice, it seldom disappoints expectations—a statement that cannot be made with any shadow of truth of any class of statesmen, except the very best. years ago lamartine was laughed at as a dreamer when he said, “newspapers will ultimately engross all literature; there will be nothing else published but newspapers,” but lamartine’s prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled. the newspaper is invading every department of literature,{406} and giving the reader the best at the lowest price.
there is a great hubbub once in a while in courts and among lawyers about what they are pleased to style trial by newspaper, and it is astonishing that before a court can reach any important case, the conduct of the case, its merits and its probable conclusion have been so well foreshadowed by the press that interest in the trial itself is comparatively slight. so general is the resort to newspapers for information and opinion, that a short time ago when one of the famous boodle aldermen of new york was called up for trial, it was impossible, under the jury laws of the state, to find even one single competent juror in a city the population of which was one million and a half. everybody had formed opinions, and the opinions generally agreed. they had seen the testimony—seen it discussed from all sides and all points—discussed so clearly, that they had no reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused. and all this they saw in the newspapers.
it begins to look as if the time might come when lawyers, courts, jurors, judges, would all be supplanted by the editor, and as if soon afterward teachers and preachers also might feel occasion to shake in their shoes. there is no danger in such an event of the editor becoming conceited. he always has a regulating principle close at{407} hand. it is right in the counting-room at the book-keeper’s desk. the public can change its opinion of a newspaper as quickly as it can of a political candidate; and when it does, the editor knows of it at once by a class of figures that never are allowed to lie.
because all this is true—and everybody admits that it is—a great many men of more ambition than brains are attempting to be full-fledged editors at a single bound. “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” angels, who have unequalled opportunities of knowing the true inwardness of things, would think twice, or oftener, before attempting to be editors, without first going through a laborious apprenticeship. it seems the easiest thing in the world for a man who has a lot of money of his own, or, better still, some money which belongs to other people, to start a newspaper and air his own opinions—which consist principally of partialities and prejudices—but the end is sure to be disastrous. many daily papers have started in our large cities and reached a large temporary circulation, which afterward disappeared in the mists of oblivion and left nothing but debts behind. a successful newspaper is the result of natural growth and accretion.
henry watterson, editor of the louisville courier-journal, says: “the result of any newspaper enterprise depends upon the character{408} of the man who engages in it—his capacity to discern correctly and to adapt his paper to the wants and needs of the audience it is meant to serve.”
whitelaw reid, editor of the new york tribune, and now minister to france, says: “every great newspaper represents an intellectual, a moral and a material growth—the accretion of successive efforts from year to year—until it has become an institution and a power. it is the voice of the power that the twenty or thirty years of honest dealing with the public and just discussion of current questions have given.”
horace greeley, the founder of mr. reid’s paper, said truthfully that “the office of a newspaper is first to give the history of its time, and afterward to deduce such theories or truths from it as shall be of universal application.” can any mere peddler of news and scandals, or any man whose sole gratification is a desire to see his own impressions in print, live up to this standard?
conscience, application and money, as well as intellect, is necessary to the successful management of a newspaper. george w. childs, editor of the philadelphia ledger, snatched the sympathies of all decent members of the editorial fraternity when he said: “few persons who peruse the morning papers think of the amount of capital{409} invested, the labor involved, and the care and anxiety incident to the preparation of the sheet which is served so regularly.” charles a. dana, editor of the new york sun, says: “the legal responsibility of newspapers is a reality, but their moral responsibility is greater and more important.” e. l. godkin, editor of the new york evening post, says: “news is an impalpable thing—an airy abstraction; to make it a merchantable commodity, somebody has to collect it, condense it, and clothe it in language, and its quality depends upon the character of the men employed in doing this.”
george william curtis, editor of harper’s weekly, admitting the tremendous influence of the press, voices the sentiment of successful editors everywhere when he says: “if the newspaper is the school of the people, and if upon popular education and intelligence the success and prosperity of popular government depends, there is no function in society which requires more conscience as well as ability.”
evidently newspaper men who amount to anything realize their responsibilities. the press is not “all right,” but it seems as far from wrong as conscience and common sense can make any earthly institution.
