BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of , CALIFORNIA J THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM OTHER COLLECTIONS drawn from The Atlantic Monthly are published under the following titles : ATLANTIC CLASSICS, First Series $1.25 ATLANTIC CLASSICS, Second Series $1.25 HEADQUARTERS NIGHTS. By Vernon Kellogg $1.00 THE WAR AND THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH. By Maurice Barres and Others $1.00 PAN-GERMANY : THE DISEASE AND CURE. By Andri Cheradame $ .35 THE ASSAULT ON HUMANISM. By Paul Shorey $1.00 SHOCK AT THE FRONT. By Wittiam T. Porter, M.D. $1.25 ATLANTIC NARRATIVES. Edited by Charles Swain Thomas $1.00 ESSAYS AND ESSAY WRITING. Edited by W. M. Tanner $1.00 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM A Collection of Articles on Newspaper Editing and Publishing, Taken from the Atlantic Monthly EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER, PH.D. Author of "Newspaper Writing and Editing" and "Types of News Writing"; Professor of Journalism in the University of Wisconsin OTfje Atlantic Jfflontfjlp ffrestf BOSTON Copyright, 1918, by THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC. . 3 it t it PREFACE T THE purpose of this book is to bring together in con- venient form a number of significant contributions to the discussion of the newspaper and its problems which have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in recent years. Although these articles were intended only for the readers of that magazine at the time of their original publication, they have permanent value for the general reader, for news- paper workers, and for students of journalism. Practically every phase of journalism is taken up in these articles, including newspaper publishing, news and editorial policies, the influence of the press, yellow and sensational journalism, the problems of the newspaper in small cities, country journalism, the Associated Press, the law of libel, book-reviewing, dramatic criticism, "comics," free-lance writing, and the opportunities in the profession. For readers who desire to make a further study of any of the important aspects of the press, a bibliography of such books and magazine articles as are generally available in public libraries has been appended. Most of the authors of the articles in this volume are newspaper and magazine writers and editors whose long experience in journalism gives particular value to their analysis of conditions, past and present. Brief notes on the journalistic work of the writers are given in the Ap- pendix. For permission to reprint the articles the editor is in- debted to the writers and to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly. W. G. B. UNIVERSITY or WISCONSIN, January 12, 1918. I 504 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION. Willard Grosvenor Bleyer ix SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM. Rollo Ogden 1 PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS. Oswald Garrison Vittard 20 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS. Francis E. Leupp 30 NEWSPAPER MORALS. H. L. Mencken 5% NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY. Ralph Pulitzer 68 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS. Edward Alsworth Ross 79 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM. Henry Watterson 97 THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. " An Observer" 112 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY. Melville E. Stone 124 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR. "Paracelsus" 133 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY. Charles Moreau Harger 151 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW. George W. Alger 167 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW. Richard Washburn Child 181 HONEST LITERARY CRITICISM. Charles Miner Thompson 200 DRAMATIC CRITICISM IN THE AMERICAN PRESS. James S. Metcalfe 224 THE HUMOR OF THE COLORED SUPPLEMENT. Ralph Bergengren 233 THE AMERICAN GRUB STREET. James H. Collins 243 JOURNALISM AS A CAREER. Charles Moreau Harger 264 BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 NOTES ON THE WRITERS 290 INTRODUCTION BY WILLARD GROSVENOR BLEYER "THE food of opinion," as President Wilson has well said, "is the news of the day." The daily newspaper, for the majority of Americans, is the sole purveyor of this food for thought. Citizens of a democracy must read and assimilate the day's news in order to form opinions on cur- rent events and issues. Again, for the average citizen the newspaper is almost the only medium for the interpreta- tion and discussion of questions of the day .A The compos- ite of individual opinions, which we call public opinion, must express itself in action to be effective. The news- paper, with its daily reiteration, is the most powerful force in urging citizens to act in accordance with their convic- tions. By reflecting the best sentiment of the community in which it is published, the newspaper makes articulate intelligent public opinion that might otherwise remain unexpressed. Since the success of democracy depends not only upon intelligent public opinion but upon political action in accordance with such opinion, it is not too much to say that the future of democratic government in this country depends upon the character of its newspapers. Yet most newspaper readers not unnaturally regard the daily paper as an ephemeral thing to be read hurriedly and cast aside. Few appreciate the extent to which their opin- ions are affected by the newspaper they read. Neverthe- less, to every newspaper reader which means almost every person in this country the conditions under which newspapers are produced and the influences that affect the x INTRODUCTION character of news and editorials, should be matters of vital concern. To newspaper workers and students of journalism the analysis of the fundamental questions of their profession is of especial importance. Discussion of current practices must precede all effort to arrive at definite standards for the profession of journalism. Only when the newspaper man realizes the probable effect of his work on the ideas and ideals of thousands of readers, and hence on the char- acter of our democracy, does he appreciate the full signifi- cance of his news story, headline, or editorial. The modern newspaper has developed so recently from simple beginnings into a great, complex institution that no systematic and extensive study has been made of its problems. Journalism has won recognition as a profession only within the last seventy-five years, and professional schools for the training of newspaper writers and editors have been in existence less than fifteen years. In view of these conditions, it is not surprising that definite principles and a generally accepted code of ethics for the practice of the profession have not been formulated. Ideal conditions of newspaper editing and publishing are not likely to be brought about by legislation. So jealous are the American people of the liberty of their press that they hesitate, even when their very existence as a nation is threatened, to impose legal restrictions on the printing of news and opinion. If regulation does come, it should be the result, as it has been in the professions of law and medicine, of the creation of an enlightened public opinion in support of professional standards adopted by journalists themselves. The present is an auspicious time to discuss such stand- ards. The world war has put to the test, not only men and machinery, but every institution of society. Of each or- INTRODUCTION xi ganized activity we ask, Is it serving most effectively the common good? Not simply service to the state, but serv- ice to society, is being demanded more and more of every individual and every institution. "These are the times which try men's souls," and that try no less the mediums through which men's souls find expression. The news- paper, as the purveyor of "food of opinion" and as the medium for expressing opinion, must measure up to the test of the times. ii The first step in a systematic analysis of the principles of journalism must be a consideration of the function of the newspaper in a democracy. In the varied and volumi- nous contents of a typical newspaper are to be found news of all kinds, editorial comment, illustrations of current events, recipes, comic strips, fashions, cartoons, advice on affairs of the heart, short stories, answers to questions on etiquette, dramatic criticism, chapters of a serial, book reviews, verse, a " colyum," and advertisements. What in this melange is the one element which distinguishes the newspaper from all other publications? It is the daily news. Weekly and monthly periodicals do everything that the newspaper does, except print the news from day to day. Whatever other aims a newspaper may have, its pri- mary purpose must be to give adequate reports of the day's news. Although various inducements other than news may be employed to attract some persons to newspapers who would not otherwise read them regularly, neverthe- less these features must not be so prominent or attractive that readers with limited time at their disposal will neglect the day's news for entertainment. To assist the public to grasp the significance of the news xii INTRODUCTION by means of editorial interpretation and discussion, to render articulate the best public sentiment, and to per- suade citizens to act in accordance with their opinions, constitute an important secondary function of the news- paper. Even though the editorial may seem to exert a less direct influence upon the opinions and political action of the average citizen than it did in the period of great editorial leadership, nevertheless the interpretation and discussion of timely topics in the editorial columns of the daily press are a force in democratic government that cannot be disregarded. Newspapers by their editorials can perform two pecul- iarly important services to the public. First, they can show the relation of state, national, and international ques- tions to the home and business interests of their readers. Only as the great issues of the day are brought home to the average reader is he likely to become keenly interested in their solution. Second, newspapers in their editorials can point out the connection between local questions and state-wide, nation-wide, or world-wide movements. Only as questions at issue in a community are shown in their relation to larger tendencies will the average reader see them in a perspective that will enable him to think and act most intelligently. In addition to fulfilling these two functions, the news- paper may supply its readers with practical advice and useful information, as well as with entertaining reading matter and illustrations. There is more justification for wholesome advice and entertainment in newspapers that circulate largely among classes whose only reading matter is the daily paper than there is in papers whose readers obtain these features from other periodicals. In view of the numberless cheap, popular magazines in this country, the extent to which daily newspapers should devote space INTRODUCTION xiii and money to advice and entertainment deserves careful consideration. That without such consideration these features may encroach unjustifiably on news and edito- rials seems evident. in Since the primary function of the newspaper is to give the day's news, the question arises, What is news? If from the point of view of successful democracy the value of news is determined by the extent to which it furnishes food for thought on current topics, we are at once given an important criterion for defining news and measuring news- values. Thus, news is anything timely which is sig- nificant to newspaper readers in their relation to the com- munity, the state, and the nation. This conception of news is not essentially at variance with the commonly accepted definition of it as anything timely that interests a number of readers, the best news being that which has greatest interest for the greatest number. The most vital matters for both men and women are their home and then- business interests, their success and their happiness. Anything in the day's news that touches directly or indirectly these things that are nearest and dearest to them, they will read with eagerness. As they may not always be able to see at once the relation of current events and issues to their home, business, and community interests, it is the duty of the newspaper to present news in such a way that its significance to the average reader will be clear. Every newspaper man knows the value of "playing up" the "local ends" of events that take place outside of the community in which his paper is published, but this method of bringing home to readers the significance to them of important news has not been as fully worked out as it will be. On this basis the best xiv INTRODUCTION news is that which can be shown to be most closely related to the interests of the largest number of readers. "But newspapers must publish entertaining news stories as well as significant ones," insists the advocate of things as they are. This may be conceded, but only with three important limitations. First, stories for mere entertain- ment that deal with events of little or no news-value must not be allowed to crowd out significant news. Second, such entertaining news-matter must not be given so much space and prominence, or be made so attractive, that the aver- age reader with but limited time in which to read his paper will neglect news of value. Third, events of importance must not be so treated as to furnish entertainment pri- marily, to the subordination of their true significance. To substitute the hors d'ceuvres, relishes, and dessert of the day's happenings for nourishing "food of opinion" is to serve an unbalanced, unwholesome mental diet. The relish should heighten, not destroy, a taste for good food. IV In order to furnish the average citizen with material from which to form opinions on all current issues, so that he may vote intelligently on men and measures, newspapers must supply significant news in as complete and as accu- rate a form as possible. The only important limitations to completeness are those imposed by the commonly accepted ideas of decency embodied in the phrase, "All the news that's fit to print," and by the rights of privacy. Carefully edited newspapers discriminate between what the public is entitled to know and what an individual has a right to keep private. Inaccuracy, due to the necessity for speed in getting news into print, most newspapers agree must be reduced INTRODUCTION xv to a minimum. The establishment of bureaus of accuracy, and constant emphasis on such mottoes as "Accuracy First," "Accuracy Always," and "If you see it in the Sun, it's so," are steps in that direction. Deliberate falsification of news for any purpose, good or bad, must be regarded as an indefensible violation of the fundamental purpose of the press. Any cause, no matter how worthy it may be, which cannot depend on facts and truth for its support does not deserve to have facts and truth distorted in its behalf. The "faking" of news can never be harmless. Even though the fictitious touches in an apparently innocent "human-interest "or "feature" story maybe recognized by most readers, yet the effect is harmful. "It's only a news- paper story," expresses the all-too-common attitude of a public whose confidence hi the reliability of newspapers has been undermined by news stories wholly or partially "faked." The "coloring," adulteration, and suppression of news as "food of opinion" is as dangerous to ithe body politic as similar manipulation of food-stuffs was to the physical bodies of our people before such practices were forbidden by law. How completely the opinions and moral judg- ments of a whole nation may be perverted by deliberate "coloring" and suppression of news, in this case by its own government, was demonstrated in Germany immediately before and during the world war. The jury of newspaper readers must have "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," if it is to give an intelligent verdict. The so-called "yellow journals" are glaring examples of newspapers built up on news and editorial policies shaped J tf xvi INTRODUCTION to attract undiscriminating readers by sensational methods. By constantly emphasizing sensational news and by "sen- sationalizing" and " melodramatizing " news that is not sufficiently startling, as well as by editorials stirring up class feeling among the masses against the monied and ruling classes, "yellow journals" have been able to out- strip all other papers in circulation. Unquestionably the most serious aspect of the influence of sensational and yellow journalism is the distorted view of life thus given. Because these papers are widely read by the partially assimilated groups of foreign immigrants in large centres of population, like New York and Chicago, they exert a particularly dangerous influence by giving these future citizens a wrong conception of American society and government. That the false ideas of our life and institutions given to foreign elements of our popula- tion while they are in the process of becoming American- ized are a serious menace to this country, requires no proof. No matter who the readers may be, however, news that is "colored" to appear "yellow," and misleading editorials, will always be dangerous to the public welfare. VI tional events, particularly those undoubtedly constitutes one all newspapers. The demoral- izing effect of accounts of criminal and vicious acts, when read by immature and morally unstable individuals, is generally admitted. On the other hand, fear of publicity and consequent disgrace to the wrong-doer and his family, is a powerful deterrent. Moreover, if newspapers sup- pressed news of crime and vice, citizens might remain ignorant of the extent to which they existed in the com- INTRODUCTION xvii munity, and consequently, with the aid of a corrupt local government, wrong-doing might flourish until it was a menace to every member of the community. To give sufficient publicity to news of crime and scandal in order to provide the necessary deterrent effect, to fur- nish readers with the information to which they are en- titled, and at the same time to present such news so that it will not give offense or encourage morally weak readers to emulate the criminal and the vicious, define the middle course which exponents of constructive journalism must steer. vn Criticisms of the newspaper of the present day should not leave us with the impression that the American press is deteriorating. No one who compares the newspaper of to-day with its predecessors of fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred years ago, can fail to appreciate how immeasur- ably superior in every respect is the press of the present day. In our newspapers now there is much less of narrow political partisanship, much less of editorial vituperation and personal abuse, much less of objectionable advertising, and relatively less news of crime and scandal. Viewed from a distance of more than half a century, great American editors loom large, but a critical study of the papers they edited shows their limitations. They were pioneers in a new land, for modern journalism began but eighty-five years ago, and as such, they deserve all honor for blaz- ing the trail; but we must not be blind to the defects of the papers that they produced, any more than we may overlook the faults of the press of our own day. The period of the struggle against slavery culminating in the Civil War was one of great editorial leadership. To say that it was the era of great "views-papers" and that xviii INTRODUCTION the present is the day of great "news-papers" is to sum up the essential difference between the two periods. In terms of democratic government, this means that citizens of the older day were accustomed to accept as their own, political opinions furnished them ready-made by their favorite editor, whereas voters to-day want to form their own opin- ions on the basis of the news and editorials furnished them by their favorite paper. This greater independence of judg- ment, with its corollary, greater independence in voting, is a long step forward toward a more complete democracy. VIII The recent development of community spirit as a means of realizing more fully the ideals of democracy by fostering greater solidarity among the diverse elements of our popu- lation, has been reflected in the news policies of many papers. By "playing up" news that tends to the upbuild- big of the community, and by "playing down," and even eliminating entirely, news that tends to exert an unwhole- some influence, newspapers in various parts of the country have developed a type of constructive journalism. Such consideration for the effect of news on readers as members of the community, and hence on community life, is one of the most important forward steps taken by the modern newspaper. Although occasion may arise from time to time for news- papers to turn the searchlight of publicity on social and political corruption, the feeling is gaining strength that newspaper crusades in the interests of institutions and movements making for community uplift are even more important than the continued exposure of evils. Many aggressive, crusading papers, accordingly, have turned from a policy of exposing such conditions to the construe- INTRODUCTION xix live purpose of showing how various agencies may be used for community development. "Searchlight " journal- ism is thus giving way to "sunlight" journalism. A con- structive policy that aims to handle local news and "local ends" of all news in such a manner that they will exert a wholesome, upbuilding influence on the community, is one of the most potent forces making for a better democracy. IX With the entry of the United States into world-affairs in cooperation with other nations, a new duty was placed upon the American press. For a number of years before the world war the amount of foreign news in the average American newspaper was very limited. With the decline of weekly letters from foreign countries written by well- known correspondents, and the reliance by newspapers on the great press associations for foreign news, readers had had relatively less news of importance from abroad than formerly. The world war naturally changed this condi- tion completely. Unless the United States decides finally to return to its former policy of isolation, American citizens must be kept in touch with important movements in other nations, so that they can form intelligent opinions in regard to the relation of this country to these nations. Since the daily newspaper is the principal medium for presenting such news, it is clear that newspapers must be prepared to present significant foreign news in such a manner that it will attract readers, by connecting it with their interests as American citizens. How the future will solve the problems of journalism must be largely a matter of conjecture. Temporarily the xx INTRODUCTION world war has given rise to peculiar problems, none of which, however, seems likely to have permanent effects on our newspapers. Censorship of news and of editorial dis- cussion has precipitated anew the ever-perplexing question of the exact limits of the liberty of the press in war times. War, too, has made clearer the pernicious influence result- ing from the dissemination throughout the world of "col- ored" news by means of semi-official news agencies sub- sidized and controlled by some of the European nations. The extent to which a whole nation may be kept in the dark by government control of news and discussion, as well as the impossibility of other nations getting impor- tant information to the people of such a country, has been strikingly exemplified by Germany and Austro-Hungary. The need of definite provision for international freedom of the press has been pom ted out as an essential factor in any programme for permanent peace. The rise in the price of print paper and increased cost of production, largely the result of war conditions, have led so generally to the raising of the price of papers from one to two cents that the penny paper bids fair to dis- appear entirely. This increase in price has not apprecia- bly reduced circulation. To economize in the use of paper during the war, many papers have reduced the number of pages by cutting down the amount of reading matter. Whether or not these changes will continue when normal conditions of business are restored cannot be predicted. Endowed newspapers, municipal newspapers, and even university newspapers, have been proposed as possible solutions of the problems of the press. Of these proposals only one, the municipal newspaper, has had a trial, and even that has not been tried under conditions that permit any conclusions as to its feasibility. Although there has INTRODUCTION xxi been a marked tendency, hastened by the war, toward government ownership or control of railroad, telegraph, and telephone lines, which, like newspapers, are private enterprises that perform a public function, there has been no corresponding movement looking toward ownership or control of newspapers by the federal, state, or local govern- ment. Effective organization of newspaper writers and editors has been urged as a means of establishing definite stand- ards for the profession. It seems remarkable that in this age of organization newspaper workers are the only mem- bers of a great profession who have no national associa- tion. Newspaper publishers, circulation managers, adver- tising men, and the editor-publishers of weekly and small daily newspapers have such organizations. For free-lance writers there is the Authors' League of America. In several Middle Western states organizations of city editors have been effected; but a movement to unite them into a na- tional association has not as yet made much progress. Two national newspaper conferences have been held under academic auspices to discuss the problems of jour- nalism, the first at the University of Wisconsin in 1912, and the second at the University of Kansas, two years later. Although a number of leaders in the profession took part in the programmes and interesting discussion resulted, the attendance of newspaper workers was not sufficiently large to be representative of the country as a whole, and no permanent organization was effected. That a national organization of newspaper men and women is neither impossible nor ineffectual has been dem- onstrated in Great Britain, where three of such associations have been active for a number of years. The Institute of Journalists of Great Britain, an association of newspaper editors and proprietors, holds an annual conference for the xxii INTRODUCTION discussion of current questions in journalism and has had as its head such distinguished journalists as Robert Donald of the London Daily Chronicle, A. G. Gardiner of the London Daily News, and J. L. Garvin, formerly editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and now editor of the Observer. The other associations are the National Union of Journalists, composed exclusively of newspaper workers, which main- tains "branches" and "district councils" in addition to the national association; and the Society of Women Journal- ists. XI There is no one simple solution for the complex prob- lems of journalism. In so far as the newspaper is a private business enterprise, it will continue to adjust itself to the steadily advancing standards of the business world. "Serv- ice," the new watch word in business, is already being taken up by the business departments of newspapers in relation to both advertisers and readers. The rejection of objec- tionable advertising and the guaranteeing of all advertis- ing published have been among the first steps taken toward serving both readers and honest business men by protect- ing them against unscrupulous advertisers. When it is generally accepted in the business world that service, as well as honesty, is the best policy, no newspaper can long afford to pursue any other. Nor need private ownership be a menace to the com- pleteness and accuracy with which newspapers present news and opinion. Just as business men are coming to realize that truthful advertising is most effective and that a satisfied customer is the best advertiser, so newspapers are coming more and more to appreciate the fact that accuracy and fair play in news and editorials are also "good business." Neither the public nor a majority of editors INTRODUCTION xxiii and publishers can afford to permit unscrupulous private ownership to impair seriously the usefulness and integrity of any newspaper. In so far as the newspaper performs a public function, its usefulness will be measured by the character of the service that it renders. Its standing will be determined by the extent to which it serves faithfully the community, the state, and the nation. Whatever principles are formu- lated and whatever code is adopted for the profession of journalism will be based on the fundamental idea of serv- ice to the people to the masses as well as to the classes. Newspaper workers, from the "cub" reporter to the edi- tor-in-chief, will be recognized as public servants, not as mere employees of a private business. The high standards maintained by them in newspaper offices will reinforce the ideal of public service held up before college men and women preparing themselves for journalism. The public will understand more fully than it ever has done the neces- sity of supporting heartily the standards established by newspapers themselves. Requests to "keep it out of the paper " and threats of "stop my paper " will be less frequent when advertisers, business men, and readers see that such attempts at coercion are an indefensible interference with an institution whose first duty is to the public. With an ever- increasing appreciation of the value of its service in business relations and with an ever-broadening conception of its duties and responsibilities, the newspaper of to-morrow may be depended on to do its part in the greatest of all national and international tasks, that of "making the world safe for democracy." THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM BY ROLLO OGDEN IT is, in a way, a form of flattery, in the eyes of modern journalism, that it should be put on its defense added to the fascinating list of "problems." This is a tribute to its importance. The compliment may often seem oblique. An editor will, at times, feel himself placed in much the same category as a famous criminal a warning, a hor- rible example, a target for reproof, but still an interesting object. That last is the redeeming feature. If the news- paper of tcnday can only be sure that it excites interest in the multitude, it is content. For to force itself upon the general notice is the main purpose of its spirit of shrill insistence, which so many have noted and so many have disliked. But the clamorous and assertive tone of the daily press may charitably be thought of as a natural reaction from its low estate of a few generations back. Upstart families or races usually have bad manners, and the newspaper, as we know it, is very much of an upstart. For long, its lot was contempt and contumely. In the first half of the eighteenth century, writing in general was reduced to extremities. Dr. Johnson says of Richard Savage that, "having no profession, he became by necessity an author/* But there was a lower deep, and that was journalism. Warburton wrote of one who is chiefly known by being pilloried in the Dunciad that he "ended in the common 2 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM sink of all such writers, a political newspaper." Even later it was recorded of the Rev. Dr. Dodd, author of the Beauties of Shakespeare, that he "descended so low as to become editor of a newspaper." After that, but one step remained to the gallows; and this was duly taken by Dr. Dodd in 1777, when he was hanged for forgery. A calling digged from such a pit may, without our special wonder, display something of the push and insolence nat- ural in a class whose privileges were long so slender or so questioned that they must be loudly proclaimed for fear that they may be forgotten. This flaunting and over-emphasis also go well with the charge that the press of to-day is commercialized. That accusation no one undertaking to comment on newspapers can pass unnoticed. Yet why should journalism be ex- empt? It is as freely asserted that colleges are commer- cialized; the theatre is accused of knowing no standard but that of the box-office; politics has the money- taint upon it; and even the church is arraigned for ignoring the teachings of St. James, and being too much a respecter of the persons of the rieh. If it is true that the commercial spirit rules the press, it is at least in good company. In actual fact, occasional instances of gross and unscrupulous financial control of newspapers for selfish or base ends must be ad- mitted to exist. There are undoubtedly some editors who bend their conscience to their dealing. Newspaper pro- prietors exist who sell themselves for gain. But this is not what is ordinarily meant by the charge of commercializa- tion. Reference is, rather, to the newspaper as a money- making institution. "When shall we have a journal," asked a clergyman not long ago, "that will be published without advertisements?" The answer is, never at least, I hope so, for the good of American journalism. We have no official press. We SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 3 have no subsidized press. We have not even an endowed press. What that would be in this country I can scarcely imagine, but I am sure it would have little or no influence. A newspaper carries weight only as it can point to evidence of public sympathy and support. But that means a busi- ness side; it means patronage; it means an eye to money. A newspaper, like an army, goes upon its belly though it does not follow that it must eat dirt. The dispute about being commercialized is always a question of more or less. When Horace Greeley founded the Tribune in 1841, he had but a thousand dollars of his own in cash. Yet his struggle to make the paper a going concern was just as intense as if he were starting it to-day with a capital (and it would be needed) of a million. Greeley, to his honor be it said, refused from the beginning to take certain advertisements. But so do newspaper proprietors to-day whose expenses per week are more than Greeley's were for the first year. The immensely large capital now required for the con- duct of a daily newspaper in a great city has had important consequences. It has made the newspaper more of an institution, less of a personal organ. Men no longer desig- nate journals by the owner's or editor's name. It used to be Bryant's paper, or Greeley's paper, or Raymond's, or Bennett's. Now it is simply Times, Herald, Tribune, and so on. No single personality can stamp itself upon the whole organism. It is too vast. It is a great piece of prop- erty, to be administered with skill; it is a carefully planned organization which best produces the effect when the per- sonalities of those who work for it are swallowed up. The individual withers, but the newspaper is more and more. Journalism becomes impersonal. There are no more " great editors," but there is a finer esprit de corps, better "team play," an institution more and more firmly established and able to justify itself. 4 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM Large capital in newspapers, and their heightened earn- ing power, tend to steady them. Freaks and rash experi- ments are also shut out by lack of means. Greeley reck- oned up a hundred or more newspapers that had died in New York before 1850. Since that time it would be hard to name ten. I can remember but two metropolitan dailies within twenty-five years that have absolutely suspended publication. Only contrast the state of things in Parisian journalism. There must be at least thirty daily newspapers in the French capital. Few of them have the air of living off their own business. Yet the necessary capital and the cost of production are so much smaller than ours that their various backers can afford to keep them afloat. But this fact does not make their sincerity or purity the more evident. On the contrary, the rumor of sinister control is more frequently circulated in connection with the French press than with our own. Our higher capitalization helps us. Just because a great sum is invested, it cannot be imperiled by allowing unscrupulous men to make use of the newspaper property; for that way ruin lies, in the end. The corrupt employment has to be concealed. If it had been known surely, for example, that Mr. Morgan, or Mr. Ryan, or Mr. Harriman owned a New York newspaper, and was utilizing it as a means of furthering his schemes, support would speedily have failed it, and it would soon have dried up from the roots. This give and take between the press and the public is vital to a just conception of American journalism. The editor does not nonchalantly project his thoughts into the void. He listens for the echo of his words. His relation to his supporters is not unlike Gladstone's definition of the intimate connection between the orator and his audience. As the speaker gets from his hearers in mist what he gives back in shower, so the newspaper receives from the public SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 5 as well as gives to it. Too often it gets as dust what it gives back as mud; but that does not alter the relation. Action and reaction are all the while going on between the press and its patrons. Hence it follows that the responsi- bility for the more crying evils of journalism must be divided. I would urge no exculpation for the editor who exploits crime, scatters filth, and infects the community with moral poison. The original responsibility is his, and it is a fear- ful one. But it is not solely his. The basest and most de- moralizing journal that lives, lives by public approval or tolerance. Its readers and advertisers have its life in their hands. At a word from them, it would either reform or die. They have the power of "recall" over it, as it is by some proposed to grant the people a power of recall over bad representatives in legislature or Congress. The very dependence of the press upon support gives its pa- trons the power of life and death over it. Advertisers are known to go to a newspaper office to seek favors, sometimes improper, often innocent. Why should they, and mere readers, too, not exercise their implied right to protest against vulgarity, the exaggeration of the triv- ial, hysteria, indecency, immorality , in the newspaper which they are asked to buy or to patronize? To a journalist of the offensive class they could say: "You excuse yourself by alleging that you simply give what the public demands; but we say that your very assertion is an insult to us and an outrage upon the public. You say that nobody pro- tests against your course ; well, we are here to protest. You point to your sales; we tell you that, unless you mend your columns, we will buy no more." There lies here, I am per- suaded, a vast unused power for the toning up of our journalism. At any rate, the reform of a free press in a free people can be brought about only by some such reac- 6 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM tion of the medium upon the instrument. Legislation di- rect would be powerless. Sir Samuel Romilly perceived this when he argued in Parliament against proposals to restrict by law the "licentious press." He said that, if the press were more licentious than formerly, it was because it had not yet got over the evils of earlier arbitrary control; and the only sure way to reform it was to make it still more free. Romilly would doubtless have agreed that a free people will, in the long run, have as good newspapers as it wants and deserves to have. As it is, public sentiment has a way, on occasion, of speaking through the press with astonishing directness and power. All the noise and extravagance, the ignorance and the distortion, cannot obscure this. There is a rough but great value in the mere publicity which the newspaper affords. The free handling of rulers has much for the credit side. When Senior was talking with Thiers in 1856, the conversation fell upon the severe press laws under Napoleon III. The Englishman said that perhaps these were due to the license of newspapers in the time of the foregoing republic, when their attacks on public men were often the extreme of scurrility. "C'etait horrible," said Thiers; "mais, pour moi, j'aime mieux 6tre gouverne par des honntes gens qu'on traite comme des voleurs, que par des voleurs qu'on traite en bonne" tes gens." * And when you have some powerful robbers to invoke the popular verdict upon, there is nothing like modern journalism for doing the job thoroughly. Those great names in our busi- ness and political firmament which lately have fallen like Lucifer, dreaded exposure in the press most of all. Courts and juries they could have faced with equanimity; or, 1 " It is terrible, but for my part, I would rather be governed by honest men who are treated as though they were thieves, than by thieves who are treated as though they were honest men." ED. SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 7 rather, their lawyers would have done it for them in the most beautiful illustration of the law's delay. But the very clamor of newspaper publicity was like an embodied public conscience pronouncing condemnation every headline an officer. I know of no other power on earth that could have stripped away from these rogues every shel- ter which their money could buy, and have been to them such an advance section of the Day of Judgment. In the immense publicity that dogged them they saw that worst of all punishments described by Shelley: when thou must appear to be That which thou art internally; And after many a false and fruitless crime, Scorn track thy lagging fall. II It is, no doubt, a belief in this honestly and whole- somely scourging power of newspapers which has made the champions of modern democracy champions also of the freedom of the press. It has not been seriously hampered or shackled in this country; but the history of its eman- cipation from burdensome taxation in England shows how the progressive and reactionary motives or temperaments come to view. When Gladstone was laboring, fifty years ago, to remove the last special tax upon newspapers, Lord Salisbury he was then Lord Robert Cecil opposed him with some of his finest sneers. Could it be maintained that a person of any education could learn anything from a penny paper? It might be said that the people would learn from the press what had been uttered by their repre- sentatives in Parliament, but how much would that add to their education? They might even discover the opin- ions of the editor. All this was very interesting, but it did 8 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM not carry real instruction to the mind. To talk about a tax on newspapers being a tax on knowledge was a pros- titution of real education. And so on. But contrast this with John Bright 's opinion. In a letter written in 1885, but not published till this year, he said : " Few men in Eng- land owe so much to the press as I do. Its progress has been very great. I was one of those who worked earnestly to overthrow the system of taxation which from the time of Queen Anne had fettered, I might almost say, strangled it out of existence. ... I hope the editors and conduc- tors of our journals may regard themselves as under a great responsibility, as men engaged in the great work of in- structing and guiding our people. ... On the faithful performance of their duties, on their truthfulness and their adherence to the moral law, the future of our country depends." To pass from these ideals to the tendencies and per- plexities of newspapers as they are is not possible without the sensation of a jar. For specimens of the faults found in even the reputable press by fair-minded men we may turn to a recent address before a university audience by Professor Butcher. Admitting that journalism had never before been "so many-sided, so well informed, so intellect- ually alert," he yet noted several literary and moral defects. Of these he dwelt first upon "hasty production." "For- merly, the question was, who is to have the last word; now it is a wild race between journalists as to who will get the first word." The professor found the marks of hurry written all over modern newspapers. Breathless haste could not but affect the editorial style. "It is smartly pictorial, restless, impatient, emphatic." This charge no editor of a daily paper can find it in his heart confidently to attempt to repel. His work has to be done under nar- row and cramping conditions of time. The hour of going SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 9 to press is ever before him as an inexorable fate. And that judgments formed and opinions expressed under such stress are often of a sort that one would fain withdraw, no sane writer for the press thinks of denying. This ancient handicap of the pressman was described by Cowper in 1780. "I began to think better of his [Burke's] cause," he wrote to the Rev. Mr. Unwin, "and burnt my verses. Such is the lot of the man who writes upon the subject of the day; the aspect of affairs changes in an hour or two, and his opinion with it; what was just and well-deserved satire in the morning, in the evening becomes a libel; the author commences his own judge, and, while he condemns with unrelenting severity what he so lately approved, is sorry to find that he has laid his leaf gold upon touch- wood, which crumbled away under his finger." While all this is sorrowfully true, to none so sorrowful as those who have it frequently borne in upon them by personal experience, it is, after all, du metier. It is a condition under which the work must be done, or not at all. A public which occasionally disapproves of a newspaper too quick on the trigger would not put up at all with one which held its fire too long. And there is, when all is said, a good deal of the philosophy of life in the compulsion to "go to press." Only in that spirit can the rough work of the world get done. The artist may file and polish end- lessly; the genius may brood; but the newspaper man must cut short his search for the full thought or the per- fect phrase, and get into type with the best at the moment attainable. At any rate, this makes for energy decision, and a ready practicality. Life is made up of such com- promises, such forced adjustments, such constant striving for the ideal with the necessitated acceptance of the closest approach to it possible, as are of the very atmos- phere in the office of a daily newspaper. But the result is 3 10 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM got. The pressure may be bad for literary technique but at all events it forces out the work. If Lord Acton had known something of the driving motives of a journalist, he would not have spent fifty years collecting material for a great history of liberty, and then died before being quite persuaded in his own mind that he was ready to write it. The counsel of wisdom which Mr. Brooke gives in Middle- march need never be addressed to a newspaper writer; that he must "pull up" in time, every day teaches him. Professor Butcher also drew an ingenious parallel be- tween the Sophists of ancient Greece and present-day journalists. It was not very flattering to the latter. One of the points of comparison was that "their pretensions were high and their basis of knowledge generally slight." Now, "ignorance," added the uncomplimentary professor, "has its own appropriate manner, and most journalists, being very clever fellows, are, when they are ignorant, conscious of their ignorance. A fine, elusive manner is therefore adopted; it is enveloped in a haze." To this charge, also, a bold and full plea of not guilty cannot be entered by a newspaper man. If his own conscience would allow it, he knows that too many of his own calling would rise up to confute him. The jokes, flings, stories, confes- sions are too numerous about the easy and empty assump- tions of omniscience by the press. Mr. Barrie has, in his reminiscential When a Man's Single, told too many tales out of the sanctum. Some of them bear on the point in hand. For example : * ' I am not sure that I know what the journalistic in- stinct precisely is,' Rob said, 'and still less whether I pos- sess it.' 'Ah, just let me put you through your paces,' replied Simms. 'Suppose yourself up for an exam, in journalism, and that I am your examiner. Question One: The house SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 11 was soon on fire; much sympathy is expressed with the suf- ferers. Can you translate that into newspaper English?' " 'Let me see,* answered Rob, entering into the spirit of the examination. 'How would this do: In a moment the edifice was enveloped in shooting tongues of flame; the appalling catastrophe has plunged the whole street into the gloom of night'? ' 'Good. Question Two: A man hangs himself; what is the technical heading for this?' " 'Either "Shocking Occurrence" or "Rash Act.'" " 'Question Three: Pabulum, Cela va sans dire, Par ex- cellence, Ne plus ultra. What are these? Are there any more of them?' 'They are scholarships,' replied Rob; 'and there are two more, namely, Tour de force and Terra firma* " 'Question Four: A. (a soldier) dies at 6 P.M. with his back to the foe; B. (a philanthropist) dies at 1 A.M.; which of these, speaking technically, would you call a creditable death?' " 'The soldier's, because time was given to set it.' " 'Quite right. Question Five: Have you ever known a newspaper which did not have the largest circulation and was not the most influential advertising medium?' " 'Never.' " 'Well, Mr. Angus,' said Simms, tiring of the examina- tion, 'you have passed with honors.' ' Many cynical admissions by the initiate could be quoted. The question was recently put to a young man who had a place on the staff of a morning newspaper: "Are you not often brought to a standstill for lack of knowledge?" "No," he replied, "as a rule I go gayly ahead, and with- out a pause. My only difficulty is when I happen to know something of the subject." But no one takes these sar- casms too seriously. They are a part of the Bohemian 12 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM tradition of journalism. But Bohemianism has gone out of the newspaper world, as the profession has become more specialized, more of a serious business. Even in his time, Jules Janin, writing to Madame de Girardin apropos of her Ecole des Journalistes, happily exposed the "assump- tion that good leading articles ever were or ever could be produced over punch and broiled bones, amidst intoxica- tion and revelry." Editors may still be ignorant, but at any rate they are not unblushingly devil-may-care about it. They do not take their work as a pure lark. They try to get their facts right. And the appreciation of accurate knowledge, if not always the market for it, is certainly higher now in newspaper offices than it used to be. The multiplied apparatus of information has done at least that for the profession. Much of its knowledge may be "index-learn- ing/' but at any rate it gets the eel by the tail. And the editor has a fairish retort for the general writer in the fact that the latter might more often be caught tripping if he had to produce his wisdom on demand and get it irrevo- cably down in black and white and in a thousand hands without time for consideration or amendment. This truth was frankly put by Motley in a letter to Holmes in 1862: "I take great pleasure in reading your prophecies, and intend to be just as free in hazarding my own. ... If you make mistakes, you shall never hear of them again, and I promise to forget them. Let me ask the same indul- gence from you in return. This is what makes letter- writing a comfort, and journalism dangerous." It is a distinction which an editor may well lay to his soul when accused of being a mere Gigadibs You, for example, clever to a fault, The rough and ready man who write apace, Read somewhat seldomer, think, perhaps, even less. SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 13 Even in journalism, the Spanish proverb holds that knowing something does not take up any room el saber no ocupa lugar. Special information is, as I often have occasion to say to applicants for work, the one thing that gives a stranger a chance in a newspaper office. The most out-of-the-way knowledge has a trick of falling pat to the day's need. A successful London journalist got his first foothold by knowing all about Scottish Disruption, when that struggle between the Established and Free churches burst upon the horizon. The editor simply had to have the services of a man who could tell an interested English public all about the question which was setting the heather afire. Similarly, not long since, a young American turned up in New York with apparently the most hopeless outfit for journalistic work. He had spent eight years in Italy studying mediseval church history and that was his basis for thinking he could write for a daily paper of the palpitating present! But it happened just then that the aged Leo XIII drew to his end, and here was a man who knew all the Papabili cardinals and archbishops; who understood thoroughly the ceremony and procedure of electing a pope; who was drenched in all the actualities of the situation, and who could, therefore, write about it with an intelligence and sympathy which made his work compel acceptance, and gave him entrance into journalism by the unlikely Porta Romana. It is but an instance of the way in which a profession growing more serious is bound to take knowledge more seriously. in It is, however, what Sir Wemyss Reid called the " Wego- tism" of the press that some fastidious souls find more offensive than its occasional betrayals of crass ignorance. 14 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM Lecky remarked upon it, in his chapters on the rise of news- papers in England. "Few things to a reflecting mind are more curious than the extraordinary weight which is at- tached to the anonymous expression of political opinion. Partly by the illusion of the imagination, partly by the weight of emphatic assertion, a plural pronoun, conspicu- ous type, and continual repetition, unknown men are able, without exciting any surprise or sense of incongruity, to assume the language of the accredited representatives of the nation, and to rebuke, patronize, or insult its leading men with a tone of authority which would not be tolerated from the foremost statesmen of their time." A remedy frequently suggested is signed editorials. Let the Great Unknown come out from behind his veil of anonymity, and drop his "plural of majesty." Then we should know him for the insignificant and negligible indi- vidual he is. It is true that some hesitating attempts of that kind have been made in this country, mostly in the baser journalism, but they have not succeeded. There is no reason to think that this practice will ever take root among us. It arose in France under conditions of rigorous press censorship, and really goes in spirit with the wish of government or society to limit that perfect freedom of dis- cussion which anonymous journalism alone can enjoy. Legal responsibility is, of course, fixed in the editor and proprietors. Nor is the literary disguise, as a rule, of such great consequence, or so difficult to penetrate. Most edi- tors would feel like making the same answer to an aggrieved person that Swift gave to one of his victims. In one of his short poems he threw some of his choicest vitriol upon one Bettesworth, a lawyer of considerable eminence, who in a rage went to Swift and demanded whether he was the author of that poem. The Dean's reply was : " Mr. Bettes- worth, I was in my youth acquainted with great lawyers SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 15 who, knowing my disposition to satire, advised me that, if any scoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, 'Are you the author of this paper?' I should tell him that I was not the author; and therefore I tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that I am not the author of these lines." But the real defense of impersonal journalism lies in the conception of a newspaper, not as an individual organ, but as a public institution. Walter Bagehot, in his Physics and Politics, uses the newspaper as a good illustration of an organism subduing everything to type. Individual style becomes blended in the common style. The excellent work of assistant editors is ascribed to their chief, just as his blunders are shouldered off upon them. It becomes impos- sible to dissect out the separate personalities which contrib- ute to the making up of the whole. The paper represents, not one man's thought, but a body of opinion. Behind what is said each day stands a long tradition. Writers, reviewers, correspondents, clientele, add their mite, but it is little more than Burns's snowflake falling into the river. The great stream flows on. I would not minimize person- ality in journalism. It has counted enormously; it still counts. But the institutional, representative idea is now most telling. The play of individuality is much restricted; has to do more with minor things than great policies. John Stuart Mill, in a letter of 1863 to Motley, very well hit off what may be called the chance r6le of the individual in modern journalism: "The line it [the London Times] takes on any particular question is much more a matter of acci- dent than is supposed. It is sometimes better than the public, and sometimes worse. It was better on the Com- petitive Examinations and on the Revised Educational Code, in each case owing to the accidental position of a particular man who happened to write on it both which men I could name to you." 16 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM Wendell Phillips told of once taking a letter to the editor of a Boston paper, whom he knew, with a request that it be published. The editor read it over, and said, "Mr. Phillips, that is a very good and interesting letter, and I shall be glad to publish it; but I wish you would consent to strike out the last paragraph." "Why," said Phillips, "that paragraph is the precise thing for which I wrote the whole letter. Without that it would be pointless." "Oh, I see that," replied the editor; "and what you say in it is perfectly true, the very children in the streets know that it is true. I fully agree with it all myself. Yet it is one of those things which it will not do to say publicly. However, if you insist upon it, I will publish the letter as it stands." It was published the next morning, and along with it a short editorial reference to it, saying that a letter from Mr. Phillips would be found in another column, and that it was extraordinary that so keen a mind as his should have fallen into the palpable absurdity contained in the last paragraph. The story suggests the harmful side of the interaction between press and public. It sometimes puts a great strain upon the intellectual honesty of the editor. He is doubt- ful how much truth his public will bear. His audience may seem to him, on occasions, minatory, as well as, on others, encouraging. So hard is it for the journalist to be sure, with Dr. Arnold, that the times will always bear what an honest man has to say. At this point, undoubtedly, we come upon the moral perils of the newspaper man. And when outsiders believe that he writes to order, or without conviction, they naturally hold a low view of his occupa- tion. Journalism, wrote Mrs. Mark Pattison in 1879, "harms SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 17 those, even the most gifted, who continue in it after early life. They cannot honestly write the kind of thing required for their public if they are really striving to reach the high- est level of thought and work possible to themselves." If this were always and absolutely true, little could be said for the Fourth Estate. We should all have to agree with James Smith, of Rejected Addresses fame : Hard is his lot who edits, thankless job ! A Sunday journal for the factious mob. With bitter paragraph and caustic jest, He gives to turbulence the day of rest, Condemn'd this week rash rancor to instil, Or thrown aside, the next, for one who will. Alike undone, or if he praise or rail (For this affects his safety, that his sale), He sinks, alas, in luckless limbo set If loud for libel, and if dumb for debt. The real libel, however, would be the assertion that the work of American journalism is done to any large extent in that spirit of the galley slave. With all its faults, it is imbued with the desire of being of public service. That is often overlaid by other motives money-making, time- serving, place-hunting. But at the high demand of a great moral or political crisis, it will assert itself, and editors will be found as ready as their fellows to hazard their all for the common weal. To show what sort of fire may burn at the heart of the true journalist, I append a letter never before published : "NEW YORK, April 23, 1867. "There is a man here named Barnard, on the bench of the Supreme Court. Some years ago he kept a gambling saloon in San Francisco, and was a notorious blackleg and vaurien. He came then to New York, plunged into the basest depths of city politics, and emerged Recorder. 18 SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM After two or three years he got by the same means to be a judge of the Supreme Court. His reputation is now of the very worst. He is unscrupulous, audacious, barefaced, and corrupt to the last degree. He not only takes bribes, but he does not even wait for them to be offered him. He sends for suitors, or rather for their counsel, and asks for the money as the price of his judgments. A more unprin- cipled scoundrel does not breathe. There is no way in which he does not prostitute his office, and in saying this I am giving you the unanimous opinion of the bar and the public. His appearance on the bench I consider literally an awful occurrence. Yet the press and bar are muzzled, for that is what it comes to, and this injurious scoun- drel has actually got possession of the highest court in the State, and dares the Christian public to expose his villany. "If I were satisfied that, if the public knew all this, it would lie down under it, I would hand the Nation over to its creditors and take myself and my children out of the community. I will not believe that yet. I am about to say all I dare say as yet in the Nation to-morrow. Barnard is capable of ruining us, if he thought it worth his while, and could of course imprison me for contempt, if he took it into his head, and I should have no redress. You have no idea what a labyrinth of wickedness and chicane surrounds him. Moreover, I have no desire either for notoriety or martyrdom, and am in various ways not well fitted to take a stand against rascality on such a scale as this. But this I do think, that it is the duty of every honest man to do something. Barnard has now got pos- session of the courts, and if he can silence the press also, where is reform to come from? ... I think some move- ment ought to be set on foot having for its object the hunt- ing down of corrupt politicians, the exposure of jobs, the sharpening of the public conscience on the whole subject SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM 19 of political purity. If this cannot be done, the growing wealth will kill not the nation, but the form of govern- ment without which, as you and I believe, the nation would be of little value to humanity." This was written to Professor Charles Eliot Norton by the late Edwin Lawrence Godkin. The Barnard referred to was, of course, the infamous judge from whom, a few years later, the judicial robes were stripped. Mr. Godkin's attack upon him was, so far as I know, the first that was made in print. But the passion of indignation which glowed in that great journalist, with his willingness to hazard his own fortunes in the public behalf, only sets forth conspicuously what humbler members of the press feel as their truest motive and their noblest reward. PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS BY OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD THE passing of the Boston Journal, in the eighty-fourth year of its age, by merger with the Boston Herald has rightly been characterized as a tragedy of journalism. Yet it is no more significant than the similar merger of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Leader, or the New York Press and the New York Sun. All are in obedi- ence to the drift toward consolidation which has been as marked in journalism as in other spheres of business ac- tivity for this is purely a business matter. True, in the cases of the Sun and the Press Mr. Munsey's controlling motive was probably the desire to obtain the Associated Press service for the Sun, which he could have secured in no other way. But Mr. Munsey was not blind to the advantages of combining the circulation of the Press and the Sun, and has profited by it. It is quite possible that there will be further consolida- tions in New York and Boston before long; at least condi- tions are ripe for them. Chicago has now only four morn- ing newspapers, including the Staats-Zeitung, but one of these has an uncertain future before it. The Herald of that city is the net result of amalgamations which successively wiped out the Record, the Times, the Chronicle, and the Inter-Ocean. It is only a few years ago that the Boston Traveler and the Evening Herald were consolidated, and Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland (Oregon), and Philadelphia are other cities in which there has been a reduction in the number of dailies. In the main it is correct to say that the decreasing PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS 21 number of newspapers in our larger American cities is due to the enormously increased costs of maintaining great dailies. This has been found to limit the number which a given advertising territory will support. It is a fact, too, that there are few other fields of enterprise in which so many unprofitable enterprises are maintained. There is one penny daily in New York which has not paid a cent to its owners in twenty years; during that time its income has met its expenses only once. Another of our New York dailies loses between $400,000 and $500,000 a year, if well- founded report is correct, but the deficit is cheerfully met each year. It may be safely stated that scarcely half of our New York morning and evening newspapers return an adequate profit. The most striking fact about the recent consolidations is that this leaves Cleveland with only one morning news- paper, the Plain Dealer. It is the sixth city in size in the United States, yet it has not appeared to be large enough to support both the Plain Dealer and the Leader, not even with the aid of what is called "foreign," or national, adver- tising, that is, advertising which originates outside of Cleveland. There are now many other cities in which the seeker after morning news is compelled to take it from one source only, whatever his political affiliations may be: in Indianapolis, from the Star; in Detroit, from the Free Press; in Toledo, from the Times; in Columbus, from the State Journal; in Scranton, from the Republican; in St. Paul, from the Pioneer Press; and in New Orleans, from the Times-Picayune. This circumstance comes as a good deal of a shock to those who fancy that at least the chief politi- cal parties should have their representative dailies in each city for that is the old American tradition. Turning to the State of Michigan, we find that the de- velopment has gone even further, for here are some sizable 22 PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS cities with no morning newspaper and but one in the even- ing field. In fourteen cities whose population has more than doubled during the last twenty-five years the number of daily newspapers printed in the English language has shrunk from 42 to only 23. In nine of these fourteen cities there is not a single morning newspaper; they have but one evening newspaper each to give them the news of the world, unless they are content to receive their news by mail from distant cities. On Sunday they are better off, for there are seven Sunday newspapers in these towns. In the five cities having more than one newspaper, there are six dailies that are thought to be unprofitable to their owners, and it is believed that, within a short time, the number of one-newspaper cities will grow to twelve, in which case Detroit and Grand Rapids will be the only cities with morning dailies. It is reported by competent witnesses that the one-newspaper towns are not only well content with this state of affairs, but that they actively resist any attempt to change the situation, the merchants in some cases banding together voluntarily to maintain the monopoly by refusing advertising to those wishing to start competition. It is of course true that in the larger cities of the East there are other causes than the lack of advertising to ac- count for the disappearance of certain newspapers. Many of them have deserved to perish because they were ineffi- ciently managed or improperly edited. The Boston Tran- script declares that the reason for the Journal's demise was lack "of that singleness and clearness of direction and pur- pose which alone establish confidence in and guarantee abiding support of a newspaper." If some of the Hearst newspapers may be cited as examples of successful journals that have neither clearness nor honesty of purpose, it is not to be questioned that a newspaper with clear-cut, vig- PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS 23 orous personalities behind it is far more likely to survive than one that does not have them. But it does not help the situation to point out, as does the Columbia (S. C.) State, that "sentiment and passion" have been responsible for the launching of many of the newspaper wrecks; for often sentiment and the righteous passion of indignation have been responsible for the foundation of notable news- papers such as the New York Tribune, whose financial success was, for a time at least, quite notable. It is the danger that newspaper conditions, because of the enor- mously increased costs and this tendency to monopoly, may prevent people who are actuated by passion and senti- ment from founding newspapers, which is causing many students of the situation much concern. What is to be the hope for the advocates of new-born and unpopular re- forms if they cannot have a press of their own, as the Abo- litionists and the founders of the Republican party set up theirs in a remarkably short time, usually with poverty- stricken bank accounts? If no good American can read of cities having only one newspaper without concern, since democracy depends largely upon the presenting of both sides of every issue, it does not add any comfort to know that it would take millions to found a new paper, on a strictly business basis, in our largest cities. Only extremely wealthy men could undertake such a venture, precisely as the rejuvenated Chicago Herald has been financed by a group of the city's wealthiest magnates, and even then the success of the undertaking would be questionable if it were not possible to secure the Associated Press service for the newcomer. The "journal of protest," it may be truthfully said, is to-day being confined, outside of the Socialistic press, to weeklies of varying types, of which the Survey, the Public, and the St. Louis Mirror, are examples; and scores of them 24 PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS fall by the wayside. The large sums necessary to estab- lish a journal of opinion are being demonstrated by the New Republic. Gone is the day when a Liberator can be founded with a couple of hundred dollars as capital. The struggle of the New York Call to keep alive, and that of some of our Jewish newspapers, are clear proof that condi- tions to-day make strongly against those who are fired by passion and sentiment to give a new and radical message to the world. True, there is still opportunity in small towns for edi- torial courage and ability; William Allen White has dem- onstrated that. But in the small towns the increased costs due to the war are being felt as keenly as in the larger cities. Ayer's Newspaper Directory shows a steady shrink- age during the last three years in the weeklies, semi- week- lies, tri-weeklies, and semi-monthlies, there being 300 less in 1916 than in 1914. There lies before me a list of 76 dailies and weeklies over which the funeral rites have been held since January 1, 1917; to some of them the govern- ment has administered the coup de grace. There are three Montreal journals among them, and a number of little German publications, together with the notorious Appeal to Reason and a couple of farm journals: 21 states are represented in the list, which is surely not complete. Many dailies have sought to save themselves by increas- ing their price to two cents, as in Chicago, Pittsburg, Buffalo, and Philadelphia; and everywhere there has been a raising of mail-subscription and advertising rates, in an effort to offset the enormous and persistent rise in the cost of paper and labor. It is indisputable, however, that, if we are in for a long war, many of the weaker city dailies and the country dailies must go to the wall, just as there have been similar failures in every one of the warring nations of Europe. PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS 25 Surveying the newspaper field as a whole, there has not been of late years a marked development of the tendency to group together a number of newspapers under one ownership in the manner of Northcliffe. Mr. Hearst, thanks be to fortune, has not added to his string lately; his group of Examiners, Journals, and Americans is popu- larly believed not to be making any large sums of money for him, because the weaker members offset the earnings of the prosperous ones, and there is reputed to be great managerial waste. 1 When Mr. Munsey buys anotherdaily, he usually sells an unprosperous one or adds another grave to his private and sizable newspaper cemetery. The Scripps-McRae Syndicate, comprising some 22 dailies, has not added to its number since 1911. In Michigan the Booth Brothers control six clean, inde- pendent papers, which, for the local reasons given above, exercise a remarkable influence. The situation in that state shows clearly how comparatively easy it would be for rich business men, with selfish or partisan purpose, to dominate public opinion there and poison the public mind against anything they disliked. It is a situation to cause much uneasiness when one looks into the more distant future and considers the distrust of the press because of a far-reaching belief that the large city newspaper, being a several-million-dollar affair, must necessarily have mana- gers in close alliance with other men in great business enter- prises, the chamber of commerce, the merchants' asso- ciation group, and therefore wholly detached from the aspirations of the plain people. Those who feel thus will be disturbed by another remark- able consolidation in the field of newspaper-making the recent absorption of a large portion of the business of the 1 Mr. Hearst acquired the Boston Advertiser in November 1917, shortly after this article was written. ED. 4 26 PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS American Press Association by the Western Newspaper Union. The latter now has an almost absolute monopoly in supplying "plate" and "ready to print" matter to the small daily newspapers and the country weeklies " pat- ent insides" is a more familiar term. The Western News- paper Union to-day furnishes plate matter to nearly four- teen thousand newspapers a stupendous number. In 1912 a United States court in Chicago forbade this very consolidation as one in restraint of trade; to-day it permits it because the great rise in the cost of plate matter, from four to seventeen cents a pound, seems to necessitate the extinction of the old competition and the establishment of a monopoly. The court was convinced that this field of newspaper enterprise will no longer support two rival con- cerns. An immense power which could be used to influence public opinion is thus placed in the hands of the officers of a money-making concern, for news matter is furnished as well as news photogravures. Only the other day I heard of a boast that a laudatory article praising a certain astute Democratic politician had appeared in no less than 7,000 publications of the Union's clients. Who can estimate the value of such an advertise- ment? Who can deny the power enormously to influence rural public opinion for better or for worse? Who can deny that the very innocent aspect of such a publication makes it a particularly easy, as well as effective, way of conducting propaganda for better or for worse? So far it has been to the advantage of both the associations to carry the propaganda matter of the great political parties, they deny any intentional propaganda of their own, but one cannot help wondering whether this will always be the case, and whether there is not danger that some day this tremendous power may be used in the interest of some privileged undertaking or some self-seeking politicians. At PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS 27 least, it would seem as if our law-makers, already so critical of the press, might be tempted to declare the Union a pub- lic-service corporation and, therefore, bound to transmit all legitimate news offered to it. In the strictly news-gathering field there is probably a decrease of competition at hand. The Allied governments abroad and our courts at home have struck a hard blow at the Hearst news-gathering concern, the International News Association, which has been excluded from England and her colonies, Italy, and France, and has recently been convicted of news-stealing and falsification on the com- plaint of the Associated Press. The case is now pending an appeal in the Supreme Court, when the decision of the lower court may be reversed. If, as a result of these proceedings, the association eventually goes out of busi- ness, it will be to the public advantage, that is, if hon- est, uncolored news is a desideratum. This will give to the Associated Press the only press association which is altogether cooperative and makes no profit by the sale of its news a monopoly in the morning field. If this lack of organized competition it is daily competing with the special correspondents of all the great newspapers has its drawbacks, it is certainly reassuring that throughout this unprecedented war the Associated Press has brought over an enormous volume of news with a minimum of just complaints as to the fidelity of that news save that it is, of course, rigidly censored in every country, and particularly in passing through England. It has met vast problems with astounding success. But it is in considerable degree dependent upon foreign news agencies, like Reuters', the Havas Agency in France, the Wolf Agency in Germany, and others, including the official Russian agency. Where these are not frankly offi- cial agencies, they are the creatures of their governments 28 PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS and have been either deliberately used by them to mislead others, and particularly foreign nations, or to conceal the truth from their own subjects. As Dean Walter Williams, of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, has lately pointed out, if there is one thing needed after this war, it is the abolition of these official and semi-official agencies with their frequent stirring up of racial and inter- national hatreds. A free press after the war is as badly needed as freedom of the seas and freedom from conscience- less kaisers and autocrats. At home, when the war is over, there is certain to be as relatively striking a slant toward social reorganization, reform, and economic revolution as had taken place in Russia, and is taking place in England as related by the London Times. When that day comes here, the deep smouldering distrust of our press will make itself felt. Our Fourth Estate is to have its day of overhauling and of being muckraked. The perfectly obvious hostility toward newspapers of the present Congress, as illustrated by its attempt to impose a direct and special tax upon them; its rigorous censorship in spite of the profession's protest of last spring; and the heavy additional postage taxes levied upon some classes of newspapers and the magazines, goes far to prove this. But even more convincing is the dis- satisfaction with the metropolitan press in every reform camp and among the plain people. It has grown tremen- dously because the masses are, rightly or wrongly, con- vinced that the newspapers with heavy capital invest- ments are a "capitalistic" press and, therefore, opposed to their interests. This feeling has grown all the more because so many hundreds of thousands who were opposed to our going to war and are opposed to it now still feel that their views as opposed to those of the prosperous and intellectual PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS 29 classes were not voiced in the press last winter. They know that their position to-day is being misrepresented as disloyal or pro-German by the bulk of the newspapers. In this situation many are turning to the Socialistic press as their one refuge. They, and multitudes who have gradu- ally been losing faith in the reliability of our journalism, for one reason or another, can still be won back if we journalists will but slake their intense thirst for reliable, trustworthy news, for opinions free from class bias and not always set forth from the point of view of the well- to-do and the privileged. How to respond to this need is the greatest problem before the American press. Mean- while, on the business side we drift toward consolidation on a resistless economic current, which foams past num- berless rocks, and leads no man knows whither. THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS BY FRANCIS E. LEUPP AFTER the last ballot had been cast and counted "n the recent mayoralty contest in New York, the successful candidate paid his respects to the newspapers which had opposed him. This is equivalent to saying that he paid them to the whole metropolitan press; for every great daily newspaper except one had done its best to defeat him, and that one had given him only a left-handed support. 1 The comments of the mayor-elect, although not ill-tem- pered, led up to the conclusion that in our common-sense generation nobody cares what the newspapers say. Unflattering as such a verdict may be, probably a majority of the community, if polled as a jury, would concur in it. The airy dismissal of some proposition as "mere newspaper talk" is heard at every social gathering, till one who was brought up to regard the press as a mighty factor in modern civilization is tempted to wonder whether it has actually lost the power it used to wield among us. The answer seems to me to depend on whether we are considering direct or indirect effects. A newspaper exerts its most direct influence through its definite interpretation of current events. Its indirect influence radiates from the amount and character of the news it prints, the par- ticular features it accentuates, and its method of present- 1 The conditions here referred to in the election of Mayor Gaynor in 1909 were almost duplicated in 1917, when Mayor Mitchel was defeated for reelection, although all the New York newspapers, except the two Hearst papers and the Socialist daily, supported him. ED. THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 31 ing these. Hence it is always possible that its direct influence may be trifling, while its indirect influence is large; its direct influence harmless, but its indirect influ- ence pernicious; or vice versa. A distinction ought to be made here like that which we make between credulity and nerves. The fact that a dwelling in which a mysterious murder has been com- mitted may for years thereafter go begging in vain for a tenant, does not mean that a whole cityful of fairly in- telligent people are victims of the ghost obsession; but it does mean that no person enjoys being reminded of mid- night assassination every time he crosses his own threshold; for so persistent a companionship with a discomforting thought is bound to depress the best nervous system ever planted in a human being. So the constant iteration of any idea in a daily newspaper will presently capture pub- lic attention, whether the idea be good or bad, sensible or foolish. Though the influence of the press, through its ability to keep certain subjects always before its readers, has grown with its growth in resources and patronage, its hold on popular confidence has unquestionably been loosened during the last forty or fifty years. To Mayor Gaynor's inference, as to most generalizations of that sort, we need not attach serious importance. The inter- play of so many forces in a political campaign makes it impracticable to separate the influence of the newspapers from the rest, and either hold it solely accountable for the result, or pass it over as negligible; for if we tried to formulate any sweeping rules, we should find it hard to explain the variegated records of success and defeat among newspaper favorites. But it may be worth while to inquire why an institution so full of potentialities as a free press does not produce more effect than it does, and 32 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS why so many of its leading writers to-day find reason to deplore the altered attitude of the poeple toward it. Not necessarily in their order of importance, but for convenience of consideration, I should list the causes for this change about as follows: the transfer of both prop- erties and policies from personal to impersonal control; the rise of the cheap magazine; the tendency to special- ization in all forms of public instruction; the fierceness of competition in the newspaper business; the demand for larger capital, unsettling the former equipoise between counting-room and editorial room; the invasion of news- paper offices by the universal mania of hurry ; the develop- ment of the news-getting at the expense of the news- interpreting function; the tendency to remould narratives of fact so as to confirm office-made policies; the growing disregard of decency in the choice of news to be specially exploited; and the scant time now spared by men of the world for reading journals of general intelligence. In the old-style newspaper, in spite of the fact that the editorial articles were usually anonymous, the editor's name appeared among the standing notices somewhere in every issue, or was so well known to the public that we talked about "what Greeley thought" of this or that, or wondered "whether Bryant was going to support" a certain ticket, or shook our heads over the latest sensa- tional screed in "Bennett's paper." The identity of such men was clear in the minds of a multitude of readers who might sometimes have been puzzled to recall the title of the sheet edited by each. We knew their private histories and their idiosyncrasies; they were to us no mere abstrac- tions on the one hand, or wire-worked puppets on the other, but living, moving, sentient human beings; and our acquaintance with them enabled us, as we believed, to locate fairly well their springs of thought and action. THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 33 Indeed, their very foibles sometimes furnished our best exegetical key to their writings. When a politician whom Bryant had criticised threat- ened to pull his nose, and Bryant responded by stalking ostentatiously three times around the bully at their next meeting in public, the readers of the Evening Post did not lose faith in the editor because he was only human, but guessed about how far to discount future utterances of the paper with regard to his antagonist. When Bennett avowed his intention of advertising the Herald without the expenditure of a dollar, by attacking his enemies so savagely as to goad them into a physical assault, every- body understood the motives behind the warfare on both sides, and attached to it only the significance that the facts warranted. Knowing Dana's affiliations, no one mistook the meaning of the Sun's dismissal of General Hancock as "a good man, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, but . . . not Samuel J. Tilden." And Greeley's retort to Bryant, "You lie, villain! willfully, wickedly, basely lie!" and his denunciation of Bennett as a "low-mouthed, blatant, witless, brutal scoundrel," though not preserved as models of amenity for the emulation of budding editors, were felt to be balanced by the delicious frankness of the Tribune's announcement of "the dissolution of the political firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley by the withdrawal of the junior partner." With all its faults, that era of personal journalism had some rugged virtues. In referring to it, I am reminded of a remark made to me, years ago, by the oldest editor then living, so old that he had employed Weed as a journeyman, and refused to hire Greeley as a tramp printer, that "in the golden age of our craft, every editor wore his conscience on his arm, and carried his dueling weapon in his hand, walked always in the light 34 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS where the whole world could see him, and was prepared to defend his published opinions with his life if need be." Without going to that extreme, it is easy to sympathize with the veteran's view that a man of force, who writes nothing for which he is not ready to be personally respon- sible, commands more respect from the mass of his fellows than one who shields himself behind a rampart of anonym- ity, and voices only the sentiments of a profit-seeking corporation. Of course, the transfer of our newspapers from personal to corporate ownership and control was not a matter of preference, but a practical necessity. The expense of modernizing the mechanical equipment alone imposed a burden which few newspaper proprietors were able to carry unaided. Add to that the cost of an ever-expanding news-service, and the higher salaries demanded by satis- factory employees in all departments, and it is hardly wonderful that one private owner after another gave up his single-handed struggle against hopeless financial odds, and sought aid from men of larger means. Partnership relations involve so many risks, and are so hard to shift in an emergency, that resort was had to the form of a corporation, which afforded the advantage of a limited liability, and enabled a shareholder to dispose of his interest if he tired of the game. Since the dependence of a newspaper on the favor of an often whimsical public placed it among the least attractive forms of investment, even under these well-guarded conditions, the capitalists who were willing to take large blocks of stock were usually men with political or speculative ends to gain, to which they could make a newspaper minister by way of compen- sating them for the hazards they faced. These newcomers were not idealists, like the founders and managers of most of the important journals of an THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 35 earlier period. They were men of keen commercial in- stincts, evidenced by the fact that they had accumulated wealth. They naturally looked at everything through the medium of the balance-sheet. Here was a paper with a fine reputation, but uncertain or disappearing profits; it must be strengthened, enlarged, and made to pay. Prin- ciples? Yes, principles were good things, but we must not ride even good things to death. The noblest cause in creation cannot be promoted by a defunct newspaper, and to keep its champion alive there must be a net cash income. The circulation must be pushed, and the adver- tising patronage increased More circulation can be se- cured only by keeping the public stirred up. Employ private detectives to pursue the runaway husband, and bring him back to his wife; organize a marine expedition to find the missing ship; send a reporter into the Soudan to interview the beleaguered general whose own govern- ment is powerless to reach him with an army. Blow the trumpet, and make ringing announcements every day. If nothing new is to be had, refurbish something so old that people have forgotten it, and spread it over lots of space. Who will know the difference? What one newspaper did, that others were forced to do or be distanced in the competition. It all had its effect. A craving for excitement was first aroused in the public, and then satisfied by the same hand that had aroused it. Nobody wished to be behind the times, so circulations were swelled gradually to tenfold their old dimensions. Rivalry was worked up among the advertisers in their turn, till a half-page in a big newspaper commanded a price undreamed of a few years before. Thus one interest was made to foster another, each increase of income in- volving also an increase of cost, and each additional out- lay bringing fresh returns. In such a race for business 36 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS success, with such forces behind the runners, can we marvel at the subsidence of ideals which in the days of individual control and slower gait were uppermost? With the cap- italists' plans to promote, and powerful advertisers to conciliate by emphasizing this subject or discreetly ignor- ing that, is not the wonder rather that the moral quality of our press has not fallen below its present standard? Even in our day we occasionally find an editor who pays his individual tribute to the old conception of personal responsibility by giving his surname to his periodical or signing his leading articles himself. In such newspaper ventures as Mr. Bryan and Mr. La Follette have launched within a few years, albeit their motives are known to be political and partisan, more attention is attracted by one of their deliverances than by a score of impersonal preach- ments. Mr. Hearst, the high priest of sensational jour- nalism, though not exploiting his own authority in the same way, has always taken pains to advertise the indi- vidual work of such lieutenants as Bierce and Brisbane; and he, like Colonel Taylor of Boston, early opened his editorial pages to contributions from distinguished authors outside of his staff, with their signatures attached. A few editors I have known who, in whatever they wrote with their own hands, dropped the diffusive "we" and adopted the more direct and intimate "I." These things go to show that even journalists who have received most of their training in the modern school appreciate that trait in our common human nature which prompts us to pay more heed to a living voice than to a talking-machine. ii The importance of a responsible personality finds further confirmation in the evolution of the modern magazine. THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 37 From being what its title indicates, a place of storage for articles believed to have some permanent value, the mag- azine began to take on a new character about twenty years ago. While preserving its distinct identity and its orig- inality, it leaped boldly into the newspaper arena, and sought its topics in the happenings of the day, regardless of their evanescence. It raised a corps of men and women who might otherwise have toiled in obscurity all their lives, and gave them a chance to become authorities on questions of immediate interest, till they are now recog- nized as constituting a limited but highly specialized pro- fession. One group occupied itself with trusts and trust magnates; another with politicians whose rise had been so meteoric as to suggest a romance behind it; another with the inside history of international episodes; another with new religious movements and their leaders, and so on. What was the result? The public following which the newspaper editors used to command when they did busi- ness in the open, but which was falling away from their anonymous successors, attached itself promptly to the magazinists. The citizen interested in insurance reform turned eagerly to all that emanated from the group in charge of that topic; whoever aspired to take part in the social uplift bought every number of every periodical in which the contributions of another group appeared; the hater of monopoly paid a third group the same compli- ment. What was more, the readers pinned their faith to their favorite writers, and quoted Mr. Steffens and Miss Tarbell and Mr. Baker on the specialty each had taken, with much the same freedom with which they might have quoted Darwin on plant-life, or Edison on electricity. If any anonymous editor ventured to question the infalli- bility of one of these prophets of the magazine world, the common multitude wasted no thought on the merits cf 38 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS the issue, but sided at once with the teacher whom they knew at least by name, against the critic whom they knew not at all. The uncomplimentary assumption as to the latter always seemed to be that, as only a subordinate part of a big organism, he was speaking, not from his heart, but from his orders; and that he must have some sinister design in trying to discredit an opponent who was not afraid to stand out and face his fire. Apropos, let us not fail to note the constant trend, of recent years, toward specialization in every department of life and thought. There was a time when a pronounce- ment from certain men on nearly any theme would be accepted by the public, not only with the outward respect commanded by persons of their social standing, but with a large measure of positive credence. One who enjoyed a general reputation for scholarship might set forth his views this week on a question of archaeology, next week on the significance of the latest earthquake, and a week later on the new canals on the planet Mars, with the certainty that each outgiving would affect public opinion to a marked degree; whereas nowadays we demand that the most distinguished members of our learned faculty stick each to his own hobby; the antiquarian to the excavations, the seismologist to the tremors of our planet, the astrono- mer to our remoter colleagues of the solar system. It is the same with our writers on political, social, and economic problems. Whereas the old-time editor was expected to tell his constituency what to think on any subject called up by the news overnight, it is now taken for granted that even news must be classified and distributed between specialists for comment; and the very sense that only one writer is trusted to handle any particular class of topics inspires a desire in the public to know who that writer is before paying much attention to his opinions. THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS The intense competition between newspapers covering the same field sometimes leads to consequences which do not strengthen the esteem of the people at large for the press at large. Witness the controversy which arose over Hjt$ the conflicting claims of Commander Peary and Dr. Cook as the original discoverer of the North Pole. One news- ^4^v paper syndicate having, at large expense, procured a narrative directly from the pen of Cook, and another accomplished a like feat with Peary, to which could "we, the people," look for an unbiased opinion on the matters in dispute? An admission by either that its star con- tributor could trifle with the truth was equivalent to throwing its own exploit into bankruptcy. So each was bound to stand by the claimant with whom it had first identified itself, and fight the battle out like an attorney under retainer; and what started as a serious contest o priority in a scientific discovery threatened to end as wrangle over a newspaper "beat." Then, too, we must reckon with the progressive accelera- tion of the pace of our twentieth-century life generally. Where we walked in the old times, we run in these; where we ambled then, we gallop now. It is the age of electric power, high explosives, articulated steel frames, in the larger world; of the long-distance telephone, the taxicab, and the card-index, in the narrower. The problem of existence is reduced to terms of time-measurement, with the detached lever substituted for the pendulum because it produces a faster tick. What is the effect of all this on the modernized news- paper? It must be first on the ground at every activity, foreseen or unforeseeable, as a matter of course. Its reporter must get off his "story" in advance of all his rivals. Never mind strict accuracy of detail effect is the main thing; he is writing, not for expert accountants, 40 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS or professional statisticians, or analytic philosophers, but for the public; and what the public wants is, not dry parti- culars, but color, vitality, heat. Pictures being a quicker medium of communication with the reader's mind than printed text, nine-tenths of our daily press is illustrated, and the illustrations of distant events are usually turned out by artists in the home office from verbal descriptions. What signifies it if only three cars went off the broken bridge, and the imaginative draftsman put five into his picture because he could not wait for the dispatch of cor- rection which almost always follows the lurid "scoop"? Who is harmed if the telegram about the suicide reads "shots" instead of "stabs," and the artist depicts the self- destroyer clutching a smoking pistol instead of a dripping dirk? It is the province of the champion of the up-to-date cult to minimize the importance of detail. The purpose of the picture, he argues, is to stamp a broad impression instantaneously on the mind, and thus spare it the more tedious process of reading. And if one detail too many is put in, or one omitted which ought to have been there, whoever is sufficiently interested to read the text will discover the fault, and whoever is not will give it no further thought anyway. As to the descriptive matter, suppose it does contain errors? The busy man of our day does not read his newspaper with the same solemn intent with which he reads history. What he asks of it is a lightning- like glimpse of the world which will show him how far it has moved in the last twelve hours; and he will not pause to complain of a few deviations from the straight line of truth, especially if it would have taken more than the twelve hours to rectify them. This would perhaps be good logic if the pure-food law were broadened in scope so as to apply to mental pabulum, THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 41 and every concocter of newspaper stories and illustrations were compelled to label his adulterated products. Then the consumer who does not object to a diet of mixed fact and falsehood, accuracy and carelessness, so long as the compound is so seasoned as to tickle his palate, could have his desire, while his neighbor who wishes an honest article or nothing at all could have his also. As it is, with no distinguishing marks, we are liable to buy one thing and get another. The new order of "speed before everything" has brought about its changes at both ends of a newspaper staff. The editorial writer who used to take a little time to look into the ramifications of a topic before reducing his opinions to writing, feels humiliated if an event occurs on which he cannot turn off a few comments at sight; but he has still a refuge in such modifying clauses as "in the light of the meagre details now before us," or "as it appears at this writing," or "in spite of the absence of full particulars, which may later change the whole aspect of affairs." No such covert offers itself to the news-getter in the open field. What he says must be definite, outright, un- qualified, or the blue pencil slashes remorselessly through his "it is suspected," or "according to a rumor which can- not be traced to its original source." What business has he to "suspect"? He is hired to know. For what, pray, is the newspaper paying him, if not for tracing rumors to their original source; and further still, if so instructed? He is there to be, not a thinker, but a worker; a human machine like a steam potato-digger, which, supplied with the necessary energizing force from behind, drives its prods under nature's mantle, and grubs out the succulent treasures she is trying to conceal. 42 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS in Nowhere is the change more patent than in the depart- ment of special correspondence. At an important point like Washington, for instance, the old corps of writers were men of mature years, most of whom had passed an apprenticeship in the editorial chair, and still held a semi-editorial relation to the newspapers they represented. They had studied political history and economics, social philosophy, and kindred subjects, as a preparation for their life-work, and were full of a wholesome sense of responsi- bility to the public as well as to their employers. Poore, Nelson, Boynton, and others of their class, were known by name, and regarded as authorities, in the communities to which they daily ministered. They were thoughtful workers as well as enterprising. They went for their news to the fountain-head, instead of dipping it out of any chance pool by the wayside. When they sent in to their home offices either fact or prophecy, they accompanied it with an interpretation which both editors and public knew to be no mere feat in lightning guesswork; and the fame which any of them prized more than a long calendar of "beats" and "exclusives" was that which would occa- sionally move a worsted competitor to confess, "I missed that news; but if - sent it out, it is true." When, in the later eighties, the new order came, it came with a rush. The first inkling of it was a notice received, in the middle of one busy night, by a correspondent who had been faithfully serving a prominent Western news- paper for a dozen years, to turn over his bureau to a young man who up to that time had been doing local reporting on its home staff. Transfers of other bureaus followed fast. A few were left, and still remain, undisturbed in personnel or character of work. Here and there, too, an THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 43 old-fashioned correspondent was retained, but retired to an emeritus post, with the privilege of writing a signed letter when the spirit moved him; while a nimbler-footed successor assumed titular command and sent the daily dispatches. The bald fact was that the newspaper man- agers had bowed to the hustling humor of the age. They no longer cared to serve journalistic viands, which re- quired deliberate mastication, to patrons who clamored for a quick lunch. So they passed on to their representa- tives at a distance the same injunction they were inces- santly pressing upon their reporters at home: "Get the news, and send it while it is hot. Don't wait to tell us what it means or what it points to; we can do our own ratiocinating." Is the public a loser by this obscuration of the corre- spondent's former function? I believe so. His appeal is no longer put to the reader directly : he becomes the mere tool of the newspaper, which in its turn furnishes to the reader such parts of his and other communications as it chooses, and in such forms as best suit its ulterior purposes. Do btless this conduces to a more perfect administrative coordination in the staff at large, but it greatly weakens the correspondent's sense of personal responsibility. Poore had his constituency, Boynton had his, Nelson had his. None of these men would, under any conceivable stress of competition, have wittingly misled the group of readers he had attached to himself; nor would one of them have tolerated any tampering in the home office with essential matters in a contribution to which he had signed his name. Indeed, so well was this understood that I never heard of anybody's trying to tamper with them. It occasionally happened that the correspondent set forth a view some- what at variance with that expressed on the editorial page of the same paper; but each party to this disagree- 44 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS ment respected the other, and the public was assumed to be capable of making its own choice between opposing opinions clearly stated. A special virtue of the plan of independent correspondence lay in the opportunity it often afforded the habitual reader of a single newspaper to get at least a glance at more than one side of a public question. Among the conspicuous fruits of the new regime is the direction sometimes sent to a correspondent to "write down" this man or "write up*' that project. He knows that it is a case of obey orders or resign, and it brings to the surface all the Hessian he may have in his blood. If he is enough of a casuist, he will try to reconcile good con- science with worldly wisdom by picturing himself as a soldier commanded to do something of which he does not approve. Disobedience at the post of duty is treachery; resignation in the face of an unwelcome billet is desertion. So he does what he is bidden, though it may be at the cost of his self-respect and the esteem of others whose kind opinion he values. I have had a young correspondent come to me for information about something under advise- ment at the White House, and apologize for not going there himself by showing me a note from his editor telling him to "give the President hell." As he had always been treated with courtesy at the White House, he had not the hardihood to go there while engaged in his campaign of abuse. Another, who had been intimate with a member of the administration then in power, was suddenly summoned one day to a conference with the publisher of his paper. He went in high spirits, believing that the invitation must mean at least a promotion in rank or an increase of salary. He returned crestfallen. Several days afterward he re- vealed to me in confidence that the paper had been un- THE WANING PX)WER OF THE PRESS 45 successfully seeking some advertising controlled by his friend, and that the publisher had offered him one thou- sand dollars for a series of articles anonymous, if he preferred exposing the private weaknesses of the emi- nent man, and giving full names, dates, and other particu- lars as to a certain unsavory association in which he was reported to find pleasure! Still another brought me a dispatch he had prepared, requesting me to look it over and see whether it contained anything strictly libelous. It proved to be a forecast of the course of the Secretary of the Treasury in a financial crisis then impending. "Tech- nically speaking," I said, after reading it, "there is plenty of libelous material in this, for it represents the Secretary as about to do something which, to my personal knowledge, he has never contemplated, and which would stamp him as unfit for his position if he should attempt it. But as a matter of fact he will ignore your story, as he is putting into type to-day a circular which is to be made public to-morrow, telling what his plan really is, and that will authoritatively discredit you." "Thank you," he answered, rather stiffly. "I have my orders to pitch into the Secretary whenever I get a chance. I shall send this to-day, and to-morrow I can send another saying that my exclusive disclosures forced him to change his programme at the last moment." These are sporadic cases, I admit, yet they indicate a mischievous tendency; just as each railway accident is itself sporadic, but too frequent fatalities from a like cause on the same line point to something wrong in the management of the road. It is not necessary to call names on the one hand, or indulge in wholesale denuncia- tion on the other, in order to indicate the extremes to which the current pace in journalism must inevitably lead if kept up. The broadest-minded and most honor- 46 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS able men in our calling realize the disagreeable truth. A few of the great newspapers, too, have the courage to cling still to the old ideals, both in their editorial attitude and in their instructions to their news-gatherers. Possi- bly their profits are smaller for their squeamishness; but that the better quality of their patronage makes up in a measure for its lesser quantity, is evident to any one familiar with the advertising business. Moreover, in the character of its employees and in the zeal and intelligence of their service, a newspaper conducted on the higher plane possesses an asset which cannot be appraised in dollars and cents. Of one such paper a famous man once said to me, "I disagree with half its political views; I am regarded as a personal enemy by its editor; but I read it religiously every day, and it is the only daily that enters the front door of my home. It is a paper written by gentlemen for gentlemen; and, though it exasperates me often, it never offends my nostrils with the odors of the slums." This last remark leads to another consideration touching the relaxed hold of the press on public confidence: I refer to the topics treated in the news columns, and the manner of their presentation. Its importance is attested by the sub-titles or mottoes adopted by several prominent news- papers, emphasizing their appeal to the family as a special constituency. In spite of the intense individualism, the reciprocal independence of the sexes, and the freedom from the trammels of feudal tradition of which we Americans boast, the social unit in this country is the family. Toward it a thousand lines of interest converge, from it a thousand lines of influence flow. Public opinion is unconsciously moulded by it, for the atmosphere of the home follows the father into his office, the son into his college, the daugh- ter into her intimate companionships. The newspaper, THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 47 therefore, which keeps the family in touch with the out- side world, though it may have to be managed with more discretion than one whose circulation is chiefly in the streets, finds its compensation in its increased radius of influence of the subtler sort. For such a field, nothing is less fit than the noisome domestic scandals and the gory horrors which fill so much of the space in newspapers of the lowest rank, and which in these later years have made occasional inroads into some of a higher grade. Unfor- tunately, these occasional inroads do more to damage the general standing of the press than the habitual revel in vulgarity. For a newspaper which frankly avows itself unhampered by niceties of taste can be branded and set aside as belonging in the impossible category; whereas, when one with a clean exterior and a reputation for re- spectability proves unworthy, its faithlessness arouses in the popular mind a distrust of all its class. And yet, whatever we may say of the modern press on its less commendable side, we are bound to admit that newspapers, like governments, fairly reflect the people they serve. Charles Dudley Warner once went so far as to say that no matter how objectionable the character of a paper may be, it is always a trifle better than the patrons on whom it relies for its support. I suspect that Mr. Warner's comparison rested on the greater frankness of the bad paper, which, by very virtue of its mode of appeal, is bound to make a brave parade of its worst qualities; whereas the reader who is loudest in proclaiming in public his repugnance for horrors, and his detestation of scandals, may in private be buying daily the sheet which peddles both most shamelessly. This sort of conventional hypocrisy among the common run of people is easier to forgive than the same thing among the cultivated few whom we accept as mentors. 48 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS I stumbled upon an illuminating incident about five years ago which I cannot forbear recalling here. A young man just graduated from college, where he had attracted some attention by the cleverness of his pen, was invited to a position on the staff of the New York Journal. Visit- ing a leading member of the college faculty to say farewell, he mentioned this compliment with not a little pride. In an instant the professor was up in arms, with an earnest protest against his handicapping his whole career by having anything to do with so monstrous an exponent of yellow journalism. The lad was deeply moved by the good man's outburst, and went home sorrowful. After a night's sleep on it, he resolved to profit by the admonition, and accordingly called upon the editor, and asked permission to withdraw his tentative acceptance. In the explana- tion which followed he inadvertently let slip the name of his adviser. He saw a cynical smile cross the face of Mr. Hearst, who summoned a stenographer, and in his pres- ence dictated a letter to the professor, requesting a five- hundred-word signed article for the next Sunday's issue and inclosing a check for two hundred and fifty dollars. On Sunday the ingenuous youth beheld the article in a conspicuous place on the Journal's editorial page, with the professor's full name appended in large capitals. We have already noted some of the effects produced on the press by the hurry-skurry of our modern life. Quite as significant are sundry phenomena recorded by Dr. Walter Dill Scott as the result of an inquiry into the read- ing habits of two thousand representative business and professional men in a typical American city. Among other things, he discovered that most of them spent not to exceed fifteen minutes a day on their newspapers. As some spent less, and some divided the time between two THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 49 or three papers, the average period devoted to any one paper could safely be placed at from five to ten minutes. The admitted practice of most of the group was to look at the headlines, the table of contents, and the weather reports, and then apparently at some specialty in which they were individually interested. The editorial articles seem to have offered them few attractions, but news items of one sort or another engaged seventy-five per cent of their attention. In an age as skeptical as ours, there is nothing astonishing in the low valuation given, by men of a class competent to do their own thinking, to anonymous opinion; but it will strike many as strange that this class takes no deeper interest in the news of the day. The trained psychologist may find it worth while to study out here the relation of cause and effect. Does the ordinary man of affairs show so scant regard for his newspaper because he no longer believes half it tells him, or only because his mind is so absorbed in matters closer at hand, and directly affecting his livelihood? Have the newspapers perverted the public taste with sensational surprises till it can no longer appre- ciate normal information normally conveyed? Professor Miinsterberg would doubtless have told us that the foregoing statistics simply justify his charge against Americans as a people; that we have gone leaping and gasping through life till we have lost the faculty of mental concentration, and hence that few of us can read any more. Whatever the explanation, the central fact has been duly recognized by all the yellow journals, and by some also which have not yet passed beyond the cream- colored stage. The "scare heads" and exaggerated type which, as a lure for purchasers, filled all their needs a few years ago, are no longer regarded as sufficient, but have given way to startling bill-board effects, with huge head- 50 THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS lines, in block-letter and vermilion ink, spread across an entire front page. The worst phase of this whole business, however, is one which does not appear on the surface, but which cer- tainly offers food for serious reflection. The point of view from which all my criticisms have been made is that of the citizen of fair intelligence and education. It is he who has been weaned from his faith in the organ of opinion which satisfied his father, till he habitually sneers at "mere newspaper talk"; it is he who has descended from reading to simply skimming the news, and who consciously suffers from the errors which adulterate, and the vul- garity which taints, that product. But there is another element in the community which has not his well-sharp- ened instinct for discrimination; which can afford to buy only the cheapest, and is drawn toward the lowest, daily prints; which, during the noon hour and at night, finds time to devour all the tenement tragedies, all the palace scandals, and all the incendiary appeals designed to make the poor man think that thrift is robbery. Over that element we find the vicious newspaper still exercising an enormous sway; and, admitting that so large a proportion of the outwardly reputable press has lost its hold upon the better class of readers, what must we look for as the re- sultant of two such unbalanced forces? Not a line of these few pages has been written in a carping, much less in a pessimistic spirit. I love the profession in whose practice I passed the largest and happiest part of my life; but the very pride I feel in its worthy achievements makes me, perhaps, the more sensi- tive to its shortcomings as these reveal themselves to an unprejudiced scrutiny. The limits of this article as to both space and scope forbid my following its subject into some inviting by-paths: as, for instance, the distinction THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS 51 to be observed between initiative and support in compar- ing the influence of the modern newspaper with that of its ancestor of a half -century ago. I am sorry, also, to put forth so many strictures without furnishing a con- structive sequel. It would be interesting, for example, to weigh such possibilities as an endowed newspaper which should do for the press, as a protest against its offenses of deliberation and its faults of haste and carelessness, what an endowed theatre might do for the rescue of the stage from a condition of chronic inanity. But it must remain for a more profound philosopher, whose function is to specialize in opinion rather than to generalize in comment, to show what remedies are practicable for the disorders which beset the body of our modern journalism. -tt NEWSPAPER MORALS BY H. L. MENCKEN ASPIRING, toward the end of my nonage, to the black robes of a dramatic critic, I took counsel with an ancient whose service went back to the days of Our American Cousin, asking him what qualities were chiefly demanded by the craft. "The main idea," he told me frankly, "is to be interest- ing, to write a good story. All else is dross. Of course, I am not against accuracy, fairness, information, learning. If you want to read Lessing and Freytag, Hazlitt and Brunetiere, go read them: they will do you no harm. It is also useful to know something about Shakespeare. But unless you can make people read your criticisms, you may as well shut up your shop. And the only way to make them read you is to give them something exciting." "You suggest, then," I ventured, "a certain feroc- ity?" "I do," replied my venerable friend. "Read George Henry Lewes, and see how he did it sometimes with a bladder on a string, usually with a meat-axe. Knock some- body on the head every day if not an actor, then the author, and if not the author, then the manager. And if the play and the performance are perfect, then excoriate someone who does n't think so a fellow critic, a rival manager, the unappreciative public. But make it hearty; make it hot! The public would rather be the butt itself than have no butt in the ring. That is Rule Number 1 of American psychology and of English, too, but more NEWSPAPER MORALS 53 especially of American. You must give a good show to get a crowd, and a good show means one with slaughter in it." JDestiny soon robbed me of my critical shroud, and I fell into a long succession of less aesthetic newspaper berths, from that of police reporter to that of managing editor, but always the advice of my ancient counselor kept turn- ing over and over in my memory, and as chance offered I began to act upon it, and whenever I acted upon it I found that it worked. What is more, I found that other newspaper men acted upon it too, some of them quite consciously and frankly, and others through a veil of self- deception, more or less diaphanous. The primary aim of all of them, no less when they played the secular lokanaan than when they played the mere newsmonger, was to please the crowd, to give a good show; and the way they set about giving that good show was by first selecting a deserving victim, and then putting him magnificently to the torture. This was their method when they were performing for their own profit only, when their one motive was to make the public read their paper; but it was still their method when they were battling bravely and unselfishly for the public good, and so discharging the highest duty of their profession. They lightened the dull days of midsummer by pursuing recreant aldermen with bloodhounds and artillery, by muckraking unsanitary milk-dealers, or by denouncing Sunday liquor-selling in suburban parks and they fought constructive campaigns for good govern- ment in exactly the same gothic, melodramatic way. Al- ways their first aim was to find a concrete target, to visual- ize their cause in some definite and defiant opponent. And always their second aim was to shell that opponent until he dropped his arms and took to ignominious flight. It was not enough to maintain and to prove: it was necessary 54 NEWSPAPER MORALS also to pursue and overcome, to lay a specific somebody low, to give the good show aforesaid. Does this confession of newspaper practice involve a libel upon the American people? Perhaps it does on the theory, let us say, that the greater the truth, the greater the libel. But I doubt if any reflective newspaper man, however lofty his professional ideals, will ever deny any essential part of that truth. He knows very well that a definite limit is set, not only upon the people's capacity for grasping intellectual concepts, but also upon their ca- pacity for grasping moral concepts. He knows that it is necessary, if he would catch and inflame them, to state his ethical syllogism in the homely terms of their habitual ethical thinking. And he knows that this is best done by dramatizing and vulgarizing it, by filling it with dynamic and emotional significance, by translating all argument for a principle into rage against a man. In brief, he knows that it is hard for the plain people to think about a thing, but easy for them to feel. Error, to hold their attention, must be visualized as a villain, and the villain must proceed swiftly to his inevitable retribu- tion. They can understand that process ; it is simple, usual, satisfying; it squares with their primitive conception of justice as a form of revenge. The hero fires them too, but less certainly, less violently than the villain. His defect is that he offers thrills at second-hand. It is the merit of the villain, pursued publicly by a posse comitatus, that he makes the public breast the primary seat of heroism, that he makes every citizen a personal participant in a glorious act of justice. Wherefore it is ever the aim of the saga- cious journalist to foster that sense of personal participa- tion. The wars that he wages are always described as the people's wars, and he himself affects to be no more than their strategist and claque. When the victory has once NEWSPAPER MORALS 55 been gained, true enough, he may take all the credit with- out a blush; but while the fight is going on he always pre- tends that every honest yeoman is enlisted, and he is even eager to make it appear that the yeomanry began it on their own motion, and out of the excess of their natural virtue. I assume here, as an axiom too obvious to be argued, that the chief appeal of a newspaper, in all such holy causes, is not at all to the educated and reflective minority of citizens, but frankly to the ignorant and unreflective majority. The truth is that it would usually get a news- paper nowhere to address its exhortations to the former; for, in the first place, they are too few in number to make their support of much value in general engagements, and, in the second place, it is almost always impossible to con- vert them into disciplined and useful soldiers. They are too cantankerous for that, too ready with embarrassing strategy of their own. One of the principal marks of an educated man, indeed, is the fact that he does not take his opinions from newspapers not, at any rate, from the militant, crusading newspapers. On the contrary, his atti- tude toward them is almost always one of frank cynicism, with indifference as its mildest form and contempt as its commonest. He knows that they are constantly falling into false reasoning about the things within his personal knowledge, that is, within the narrow circle of his spe- cial education, and so he assumes that they make the same, or even worse, errors about other things, whether intellectual or moral. This assumption, it may be said at once, is quite justified by the facts. I know of no subject, in truth, save perhaps baseball, on which the average American newspaper, even in the larger cities, discourses with unfailing sense and under- standing. Whenever the public journals presume to illu- 56 NEWSPAPER MORALS minate such a matter as municipal taxation, for example, or the extension of local transportation facilities, or the punishment of public or private criminals, or the control of public-service corporations, or the revision of city char- ters, the chief effect of their effort is to introduce into it a host of extraneous issues, most of them wholly emotional, and so they contrive to make it unintelligible to all earnest seekers after the truth. But it does not follow thereby that they also make it unintelligible to their special client, the man in the street. Far from it. What they actually accomplish is the exact opposite. That is to say, it is precisely by this process of transmutation and emotionalization that they bring a given problem down to the level of that man's comprehension, and, what is more important, within the range of his active sympathies. He is not interested in anything that does not stir him, and he is not stirred by anything that fails to impinge upon his small stock of customary appetites and attitudes. His daily acts are ordered, not by any com- plex process of reasoning, but by a continuous process of very elemental feeling. He is not at all responsive to purely intellectual argument, even when its theme is his own ultimate benefit, for such argument quickly gets beyond his immediate interest and experience. But he is very responsive to emotional suggestion, particularly when it is crudely and violently made; and it is to this weakness that the newspapers must ever address their endeavors. In brief, they must try to arouse his horror, or indignation, or pity, or simply his lust for slaughter. Once they have done that, they have him safely by the nose. He will fol- low blindly until his emotion wears out. He will be ready to believe anything, however absurd, so long as he is in his state of psychic tumescence. In the reform campaigns which periodically rock our NEWSPAPER MORALS 57 large cities, and our small ones, too, the newspapers habitually make use of this fact. Such campaigns are not intellectual wars upon erroneous principles, but emotional wars upon errant men: they always revolve around the pursuit of some definite, concrete, fugitive malefactor, or group of malefactors. That is to say, they belong to popu- lar sport rather than to the science of government; the impulse behind them is always far more orgiastic than re- flective. For good government in the abstract, the people of the United States seem to have no liking, or, at all events, no passion. It is impossible to get them stirred up over it, or even to make them give serious thought to it. They seem to assume that it is a mere phantasm of theo- rists, a political will-o'-the-wisp, a Utopian dream wholly uninteresting, and probably full of dangers and tricks. The very discussion of it bores them unspeakably, and those papers which habitually discuss it logically and unemo- tionally for example, the New York Evening Post are diligently avoided by the mob. What the mob thirsts for is not good government in itself, but the merry chase of a definite exponent of bad government. The newspaper that discovers such an exponent or, more accurately, the newspaper that discovers dramatic and overwhelming evidence against him has all the material necessary for a reform wave of the highest emotional intensity. All that it need do is to goad the victim into a fight. Once he has formally joined the issue, the people will do the rest. They are always ready for a man-hunt, and their favorite quarry is the man of politics. If no such prey is at hand, they will turn to wealthy debauchees, to fallen Sunday-school super- intendents, to money barons, to white-slave traders, to unsedulous chiefs of police. But their first choice is the boss. In assaulting bosses, however, a newspaper must look 58 NEWSPAPER MORALS carefully to its ammunition, and to the order and interre- lation of its salvos. There is such a thing, at the start, as overshooting the mark, and the danger thereof is very serious. The people, must be aroused by degrees, gently at first, and then with more and more ferocity. They are not capable of reaching the maximum of indignation at one leap : even on the side of pure emotion they have their rigid limitations. And this, of course, is because even emotion must have a quasi-intellectual basis, because even indignation must arise out of facts. One fact at a time! If a newspaper printed the whole story of a political boss's misdeeds in a single article, that article would have scarcely any effect whatever, for it would be far too long for the average reader to read and absorb. He would never get to the end of it, and the part he actually traversed would remain muddled and distasteful in his memory. Far from arousing an emotion in him, it would arouse only ennui, which is the very antithesis of emotion. He cannot read more than three columns of any one subject without tiring: 6,000 words, I should say, is the extreme limit of his appe- tite. And the nearer he is pushed to that limit, the greater the strain upon his psychic digestion. He can absorb a single capital fact, leaping from a headline, at one colossal gulp ; but he could not down a dissertation in twenty. And the first desideratum in a headline is that it deal with a single and capital fact. It must be, "McGinnis Steals $1,257,867.25," not, "McGinnis Lacks Ethical Sense." Moreover, a newspaper article which presumed to tell the whole of a thrilling story in one gargantuan install- ment would lack the dynamic element, the quality of mystery and suspense. Even if it should achieve the miracle of arousing the reader to a high pitch of excite- ment, it would let him drop again next day. If he is to be kept in his frenzy long enough for it to be dangerous to NEWSPAPER MORALS 59 the common foe, he must be led into it gradually. The newspaper in charge of the business must harrow him, tease him, promise him, hold him. It is thus that his indignation is transformed from a state of being into a state of gradual and cumulative becoming; it is thus that reform takes on the character of a hotly contested game, with the issue agreeably in doubt. And it is always as a game, of course, that the man in the street views moral endeavor. Whether its proposed victim be a political boss, a police captain, a gambler, a fugitive murderer, or a dis- graced clergyman, his interest in it is almost purely a sport- ing interest. And the intensity of that interest, of course, depends upon the fierceness of the clash. The game is fascinating in proportion as the morally pursued puts up a stubborn defense, and in proportion as the newspaper directing the pursuit is resourceful and merciless, and in proportion as the eminence of the quarry is great and his resultant downfall spectacular. A war against a ward boss seldom attracts much attention, even in the smaller cities, for he is insignificant to begin with and an inept and cowardly fellow to end with; but the famous war upon William M. Tweed shook the whole nation, for he was a man of tremendous power, he was a brave and enterprising antagonist, and his fall carried a multitude of other men with him. Here, indeed, was sport royal, and the plain people took to it with avidity. But once such a buccaneer is overhauled and manacled, the show is over, and the people take no further interest in reform. In place of the fallen boss, a so-called reformer has been set up. He goes into office with public opinion apparently solidly behind him : there is every promise that the improvement achieved will be lasting. But experience shows that it seldom is. Reform does not last. The re- former quickly loses his public. His usual fate, indeed, is 60 NEWSPAPER MORALS to become the pet butt and aversion of his public. The very mob that put him into office chases him out of office. And after all, there is nothing very astonishing about this change of front, which is really far less a change of front than it seems. The mob has been fed, for weeks preceding the reformer's elevation, upon the blood of big and little bosses; it has acquired a taste for their chase, and for the chase in general. Now, of a sudden, it is deprived of that stimulating sport. The old bosses are in retreat; there are yet no new bosses to belabor and pursue; the newspapers which elected the reformer are busily apologizing for his amateurish errors a dull and dispiriting business. No wonder it now becomes possible for the old bosses, acting through their inevitable friends on the respectable side, the "solid" business men, the takers of favors, the under- writers of political enterprise, and the newspapers influ- enced by these pious fellows, to start the rabble against the reformer. The trick is quite as easy as that but lately done. The rabble wants a good show, a game, a victim: it does n't care who that victim may be. How easy to con- vince it that the reformer is a scoundrel himself, that he is as bad as any of the old bosses, that he ought to go to the block for high crimes and misdemeanors! It never had any actual love for him, or even any faith in him; his elec- tion was a mere incident of the chase of his predecessor. No wonder that it falls upon him eagerly, butchering him to make a new holiday! This is what has happened over and over again in every large American city Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Cin- cinnati, Pittsburg, New Orleans, Baltimore, San Francisco, St. Paul, Kansas City. Every one of these places has had its melodramatic reform campaigns and its inevitable reac- tions. The people have leaped to the overthrow of bosses, and then wearied of the ensuing tedium. A perfectly NEWSPAPER MORALS 61 typical slipping back, to be matched in a dozen other cities, is going on in Philadelphia to-day [1914]. Mayor Rudolph Blankenberg, a veteran war-horse of reform, came into office through the downfall of the old bosses, a catastrophe for which he had labored and agitated for more than thirty years. But now the old bosses are getting their revenge by telling the people that he is a violent and villainous boss himself. Certain newspapers are helping them; they have concealed but powerful support among financiers and busi- ness men; volunteers have even come forward from other cities for example, the Mayor of Baltimore. Slowly but surely this insidious campaign is making itself felt; the common people show signs of yearning for another auto- da-fe. Mayor Blankenberg, unless I am the worst prophet unhung, will meet with an overwhelming defeat in 1915. 1 And it will be a very difficult thing to put even a half- decent man in his place: the victory of the bosses will be so nearly complete that they will be under no necessity of offering compromises. Employing a favorite device of political humor, they may select a harmless blank car- tridge, a respectable numskull, what is commonly called a perfumer. But the chances are that they will select a frank ringster, and that the people will elect him with cheers. ii Such is the ebb and flow of emotion in the popular heart or perhaps, if we would be more accurate, the pop- ular liver. It does not constitute an intelligible system of morality, for morality, at bottom, is not at all an instinctive matter, but a purely intellectual matter: its essence is the 1 This was written in 1914. The overthrow of Blankenberg took place as forecast, and Philadelphia has since enjoyed boss rule again, with plentiful scandals. H. L. M. 62 NEWSPAPER MORALS control of impulse by an ideational process, the subordina- tion of the immediate desire to the distant aim. But such as it is, it is the only system of morality that the emotional majority is capable of comprehending and practicing; and so the newspapers, which deal with majorities quite as frankly as politicians deal with them, have to admit it into their own system. That is to say, they cannot accom- plish anything by talking down to the public from a moral plane higher than its own : they must take careful account of its habitual ways of thinking, its moral thirsts and preju- dices, its well-defined limitations. They must remember clearly, as judges and lawyers have to remember it, that the morality subscribed to by that public is far from the stern and arctic morality of professors of the science. On the contrary, it is a mellower and more human thing; it has room for the antithetical emotions of sympathy and scorn; it makes no effort to separate the criminal from his crime. The higher moralities, running up to that of Puritans and archbishops, allow no weight to custom, to general rep- utation, to temptation; they hold it to be no defense of a ballot-box stuffer, for example, that he had scores of accomplices and that he is kind to his little children. But the popular morality regards such a defense as sound and apposite; it is perfectly willing to convert a trial on a specific charge into a trial on a general charge. And in giving judgment it is always ready to let feeling triumph over every idea of abstract justice; and very often that feeling has its origin and support, not in matters actually in evidence, but in impressions wholly extraneous and ir- relevant. Hence the need of a careful and wary approach in all newspaper crusades, particularly on the political side. On the one hand, as I have said, the astute journalist must NEWSPAPER MORALS 63 remember the public's incapacity for taking in more than one thing at a time, and on the other hand, he must re- member its disposition to be swayed by mere feeling, and its habit of founding that feeling upon general and indefi- nite impressions. Reduced to a rule of everyday practice, this means that the campaign against a given malefactor must begin a good while before the capital accusation that is, the accusation upon which a verdict of guilty is sought is formally brought forward. There must be a shelling of the fortress before the assault; suspicion must precede indignation. If this preliminary work is neglected or ineptly performed, the result is apt to be a collapse of the campaign. The public is not ready to switch from con- fidence to doubt on the instant; if its general attitude to- ward a man is sympathetic, that sympathy is likely to sur- vive even a very vigorous attack. The accomplished mob- master lays his course accordingly. His first aim is to arouse suspicion, to break down the presumption of inno- cence supposing, of course, that he finds it to exist. He knows that he must plant a seed, and tend it long and lovingly, before he may pluck his dragon-flower. He knows that all storms of emotion, however suddenly they may seem to come up, have their origin over the rim of consciousness, and that their gathering is really a slow, slow business. I mix the figures shamelessly, as mob- masters mix 'their brews! It is this persistence of an attitude which gives a certain degree of immunity to all newcomers in office, even in the face of sharp and resourceful assault. For example, a new president. The majority in favor of him on Inauguration Day is usually overwhelming, no matter how small his plurality in the November preceding, for common self- respect demands that the people magnify his virtues: to deny them would be a confession of national failure, a 64 NEWSPAPER MORALS destructive criticism of the Republic. And that benignant disposition commonly survives until his first year in office is more than half gone. The public prejudice is wholly on his side : his critics find it difficult to arouse any indig- nation against him, even when the offenses they lay to him are in violation of the fundamental axioms of popular morality. This explains why it was that Mr. Wilson was so little damaged by the charge of federal interference in the Diggs-Caminetti case a charge well supported by the evidence brought forward, and involving a serious vio- lation of popular notions of virtue. And this explains, too, why he survived the oratorical pilgrimages of his Secretary of State at a time of serious international difficulty pil- grimages apparently undertaken with his approval, and hence at his political risk and cost. The people were still in favor of him, and so he was not brought to irate and drum-head judgment. No roar of indignation arose to the heavens. The opposition newspapers, with sure instinct, felt the irresistible force of public opinion on his side, and so they ceased their clamor very quickly. But it is just such a slow accumulation of pin-pricks, each apparently harmless in itself, that finally draws blood ; it is by just such a leisurely and insidious process that the presumption of innocence is destroyed, and a hospitality to suspicion created. The campaign against Governor Sulzer in New York offers a classic example of this process in operation, with very skillful gentlemen, journalistic and political, in control of it. The charges on which Governor Sulzer was finally brought to impeachment were not launched at him out of a clear sky, nor while the primary presumption in his favor remained unshaken. Not at all. They were launched at a carefully selected and critical moment at the end, to wit, of a long and well-managed series of minor attacks. The fortress of his popularity was NEWSPAPER MORALS 65 bombarded a long while before it was assaulted. He was pursued with insinuations and innuendoes; various per- sons, more or less dubious, were led to make various charges, more or less vague, against him; the managers of the campaign sought to poison the plain people with doubts, misunderstandings, suspicions. This effort, so diligently made, was highly successful; and so the capital charges, when they were brought forward at last, had the effect of confirmations, of corroborations, of proofs. But if Tammany had made them during the first few months of Governor Sulzer's term, while all doubts were yet in his favor, it would have got only scornful laughter for its pains. The ground had to be prepared; the public mind had to be put into training. The end of my space is near, and I find that I have written of popular morality very copiously, and of news- paper morality very little. But, as I have said before, the one is the other. The newspaper must adapt its pleading to its clients' moral limitations, just as the trial lawyer must adapt his pleading to the jury's limitations. Neither may like the job, but both must face it to gain a larger end. And that end, I believe, is a worthy one in the news- paper's case quite as often as in the lawyer's, and perhaps far oftener. The art of leading the vulgar, in itself, does no discredit to its practitioner. Lincoln practiced it un- ashamed, and so did Webster, Clay, and Henry. What is more, these men practiced it with frank allowance for the nai'vete of the people they presumed to lead. It was Lin- coln's chief source of strength, indeed, that he had a homely way with him, that he could reduce complex problems to the simple terms of popular theory and emotion, that he did not ask little fishes to think and act like whales. This is the manner in which the newspapers do their work, and 66 NEWSPAPER MORALS in the long run, I am convinced, they accomplish about as much good as harm thereby. Dishonesty, of course, is not unknown among them: we have newspapers in this land which apply a truly devilish technical skill to the achievement of unsound and unworthy ends. But not as many of them as perfectionists usually allege. Taking one with another, they strive in the right direction. They realize the massive fact that the plain people, for all their poverty of wit, cannot be fooled forever. They have a healthy fear of that heathen rage which so often serves their uses. Look back a generation or two. Consider the history of our democracy since the Civil War. Our most serious problems, it must be plain, have been solved orgiastically, and to the tune of deafening newspaper urging and clamor. Men have been washed into office on waves of emotion, and washed out again in the same manner. Measures and policies have been determined by indignation far more often than by cold reason. But is the net result evil? Is there even any permanent damage from those debauches of sentiment in which the newspapers have acted insin- cerely, unintelligently, with no thought save for the show itself? I doubt it. The effect of their long and melo- dramatic chase of bosses is an undoubted improvement in our whole governmental method. The boss of to-day is not an envied first citizen, but a criminal constantly on trial. He himself is debarred from all public offices of honor, and his control over other public officers grows less and less. Elections are no longer boldly stolen; the hum- blest citizen may go to the polls in safety and cast his vote honestly; the machine grows less dangerous year by year; perhaps it is already less dangerous than a camorra of Utopian and dehumanized reformers would be. We begin to develop an official morality which actually rises above NEWSPAPER MORALS 67 our private morality. Bribe-takers are sent to jail by the votes of jurymen who give presents in their daily business, and are not above beating the street-car company. And so, too, in narrower fields. The white-slave agita- tion of a year or so ago was ludicrously extravagant and emotional, but its net effect is a better conscience, a new alertness. The newspapers discharged broadsides of 12- inch guns to bring down a flock of buzzards but they brought down the buzzards. They have libeled and lynched the police but the police are the better for it. They have represented salicylic acid as an elder brother to bichloride of mercury but we are poisoned less than we used to be. .They have lifted the plain people to frenzies of senseless terror over drinking-cups and neighbors with coughs but the death-rate from tuberculosis declines. They have railroaded men to prison, denying them all their common rights but fewer malefactors escape to-day than yesterday. The way of ethical progress is not straight. It describes, to risk a mathematical pun, a sort of drunken hyperbola. But if we thus move onward and upward by leaps and bounces, it is certainly better than not moving at all. Each time, perhaps, we slip back, but each time we stop at a higher level. NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY BY RALPH PULITZER THE striking article in the March Atlantic by Mr. Henry L. Mencken, on "Newspaper Morals," is so full of pal- pable facts supporting plausible fallacies that simple justice to press and "proletariat" seems to render proper a few thoughts in answer to it. Mr. Mencken's main facts, summarized, are as follows: that press and public often approach public questions too superficially and sentimentally; that the sense of propor- tion is too often lost in the heat of campaigns; that the truth is too often obscured by the intrusion of irrelevant personalities; and that after the intemperate extremes of reform waves there always come reactions into indiffer- ence to the evils but yesterday so furiously fought. Mr. Mencken's fallacies are: the supercilious assump- tion that these weaknesses are not matters of human tem- perament running up and down through a certain propor- tion of every division of society, but that, on the contrary, they are class affairs, never tainting the educated classes, but limited to "the man in the street," "the rabble," "the mob"; that apparently the emotionalizing of public questions by the press is to be censured in principle and sneered at in practice; that it means a deliberate truckling by the newspapers to the ignorant tastes of the masses when the press fights a public evil by attacking, with argu- ment and indignation mingled, a man who personifies that evil, instead of opposing the general principle of that evil with a wholly passionless intellectualism. A general fallacy which affects Mr. Mencken's whole NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY 69 article lies in criticising as offenses against "newspaper morals" those imperfections which, where they exist at all, could properly be criticised only under such criteria as suggested by "Newspaper Intellectuals," or "Newspapers as the Exponents of Pure Reason." Mr. Mencken first exposes and deprecates the "aim" of the newspapers to "knock somebody on the head every day," "to please the crowd, to give a good show, by first selecting a deserving victim and then putting him mag- nificently to the torture," and even to fight "constructive campaigns for good government in exactly the same gothic, melodramatic way." Now "muck-raking" rather than incense-burning is not a deliberate aim so much as a spontaneous instinct of the average newspaper. Nor is there anything either mysteri- ous or reprehensible about this. The public, of all degrees, is more interested in hitting Wrong than in praising Right, because fortunately we are still in an optimistic state of society, where Right is taken for granted and Wrong con- * tains the element of the unusual and abnormal. If the day shall ever come when papers will be able to "expose" Right and regard Wrong as a foregone conclusion, they will doubtless quickly reverse their treatment of the two. In an Ali Baba's cave it might be natural for a paper to dis- cover some man's honesty; in a yoshiwara it might be reasonable for it to expatiate on some woman's virtue. But while honesty and virtue and Tightness are assumed to be the normal condition of men and women and things in general, it does not seem either extraordinary or cul- pable that people and press should be more interested in the polemical than in the platitudinous; in blame than in painting the lily; in attack than in sending laudatory coals to Newcastle. It scarcely needs remark, however, that when the element of surprise is introduced by some deed 70 NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY of exceptional heroism or abnegation or inspiration, the newspapers are not slow in giving it publicity and praise. Mr. Mencken finds it deplorable that "a very definite limit is set, not only upon the people's capacity for grasping intellectual concepts, but also upon their capacity for grasping moral concepts"; that, therefore, it is necessary "to visualize their cause in some definite and defiant op- ponent ... by translating all arguments for a principle into rage against a man." Far be it from me to deny that people and papers are too prone to get diverted from the pursuit of some principle by acrimonious personalities wholly ungermane to that principle. But the protest against this should not lead to unfair extremes in the op- posite direction. If Mr. Mencken's ideal is a nation of philosophers calmly agreeing on the abstract desirability of honesty while serenely ignoring the specific picking of their own pockets, we have no ground for argument. But until we reach such a semi-imbecile Utopia, it would seem to be no reflection on "the people's" intellectual or moral concepts that they should refuse to excite themselves over any theoretical wrong until their attention is focused on some practical manifestation of it, in the concrete acts of some specific individual. May I add, parenthetically, that some papers and many acutely intellectual gentlemen find it far more convenient and comfortable to generalize virtuously than to particu- larize virtuously? Nor does it require merely moral or physical courage to reduce the safely general to the dis- agreeably personal. It requires no despicable amount of intellectual acumen as well. Mr. Mencken next proceeds to "assume here, as an axiom too obvious to be argued, that the chief appeal of a newspaper in all such holy causes is not at all to the edu- cated and reflective minority of citizens, but to the igno- NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY 71 rant and unreflective majority." On the contrary, it is very far from being "too obvious to be argued." A great many persons of guaranteed education are sadly destitute of any reflectiveness whatsoever, while an appalling num- ber of "the ignorant" have the effrontery to be able to reflect very efficiently. This is apart from the fact that the general intelligence among many of the ignorant is matched only by the abysmal stupidity of many of the educated. Thus it is that the decent paper makes its appeal on public questions to the numerically large body of reflec- tive "ignorance" and to the numerically small body of reflective education, leaving it to the demagogic papers, which are the exception at one end, to inflame the unre- flective ignorant, and to the sycophantic papers at the other end to pander to the unreflective educated. As to Mr. Mencken's charge that he knows of "no sub- ject, save perhaps baseball, on which the average American newspaper discourses with unfailing sense and understand- ing," I know of no subject at all, even including baseball, on which the most exceptionally gifted man in the world discourses with unfailing sense and understanding. But I do know this: that, considering the immense range of subjects which the American paper is called upon to dis- cuss, and its meagre limits of time in which to prepare for such discussion, the failings of that paper in sense and understanding are probably rarer than would be those under the same conditions of Mr. Mencken's most fastidi- ous selection. "But," Mr. Mencken continues, "whenever the public journals presume to illuminate such a matter as municipal taxation, for example, or the extension of local transporta- tion facilities, or the punishment of public or private crim- inals, or the control of public-service corporations, or the 72 NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY revision of city charters, the chief effect of their effort is to introduce into it a host of extraneous issues, most of them wholly emotional, and so they continue to make it unin- telligible to all earnest seekers after truth." Here again it is all a matter of point of view. If Mr. Mencken's earnest seekers after truth wish to evolve ideological schemes of municipal taxation, or supramundane extensions of trans- portation facilities, or transcendental control of public- service corporations, or academic revisions of city charters, then, indeed, the newspaper discussions of these questions would be bewildering to these visionary workers in the realms of pure reason. For the newspapers "presume" to regard these questions, not as theoretical problems, to be solved under theoretical conditions, on theoretical popu- lations, to theoretical perfection, but as workable projects for a workaday world, in which the most beautiful abstract reasoning must stand the test of flesh-and-blood condi- tions; they regard emotional issues as so far, indeed, from being extraneous that the human nature of the humblest men and women must be weighed in the balance against the nicest syllogisms of the precisest logic. And this is nothing that Mr. Mencken need condescend to apologize for so long as "newspaper morals" are under discussion. For it must be obvious that the honest exposition and analysis of public questions from a human as well as a scientific point of view is a higher moral service to the com- munity than an exclusively scientific, wholly unsympa- thetic search after truth by those who regard populations as mere subjects for the demonstration of principles. It is precisely the honorable prerogative of newspapers not only to clarify but to vivify, to galvanize dead hypoth- eses into living questions, to make the educated and the ignorant alike feel that public questions should interest NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY 73 and stir all good citizens and not merely engross social philosophers and political theorists. But here let me avoid joining Mr. Mencken in the pit- fall of generalizations, by drawing a sharp distinction be- tween the great run of decent papers which do honestly emotionalize public questions and the relatively few papers which unscrupulously hystericalize these questions. Mr. Mencken is entirely correct when he admits that this emotionalizing brings these problems down to a "man's comprehension, and, what is more important, within the range of his active sympathies." But he again shows a very unfortunate class arrogance when he identifies this man as " the man in the street." If Mr. Mencken searched earnestly enough after truth, he would find this man to be about as extensively the man at the ticker, the man in the motor-car, the man at the operating table, the man in the pulpit. In the same vein he continues that the only papers which discuss good government unemotionally "are dili- gently avoided by the raofc." If Mr. Mencken only in- cluded with his proletariat the mob of stockbrokers and doctors and engineers and lawyers and college graduates generally, who refuse to read these logical and unemotional discussions, he would unfortunately be quite right. It would be a beautiful thing indeed if we had with us to-day one hundred millions of "earnest seekers after truth," all busily engaged in discussing "good government in the ab- stract," "logically and unemotionally." If they were only thus dispassionately busied, it is quite true that things would not be as at present, when "they are always ready for a man hunt and their favorite quarry is a man of poli- tics. If no such prey is at hand, they will turn to wealthy debauchees, to fallen Sunday-school superintendents, to money barons, to white-slave traders." In those halcyon times the one hundred million calm abstractionists would 7 74 NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY discuss the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on bosses, or, failing this, the ultimate effect of wealth on eroticism, the obscure relations between proselyting and decadence, or the effect of the white-slave traffic on the gold reserve. But in our present unregenerate epoch Mr. Mencken is quite right in holding that it is generally the specific evils of government or society which bring about reform waves, which in turn crystallize themselves into general principles. It is a shockingly practical process, I admit ; but then, we are a shockingly practical people, who prefer sordid results to inspired theories. And at that we are not in such bad company. For in no country in the world is there such a thing as a "revealed" civilization. On the contrary, civil- ization has always been for the most part purely empirical, and progress will ever remain so. There is, therefore, cause not for shame but for pride when a newspaper reveals some specific iniquity, and by not merely expounding its isolated character to the public intelligence, but also by interpreting its general menace to the public imagination and bringing home its inherent evil to the public conscience, arouses that public to social legis- lation, criminal prosecution, or political reform. Mr. Mencken next assaults once more his unfortunate "man in the street" by declaring that "it is always as a game, of course, that the man in the street views moral endeavor. . . . His interest in it is almost always a sport- ing interest." On the contrary, here at last we have a case where a class distinction can fairly be drawn. "The man in the street" is a naive man who takes his melodrama seriously, who believes robustly in blacks and whites with- out subtilizing them into intermediate shades, for whom villains and heroes really exist. He is the last person on earth to view the moral endeavor of a political or social campaign as a game. It is the supercilious class, with its NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY 75 sophistication and attendant cynicism, to whom such cam- paigns tend to take on the aspect of sporting events and games of skill. But it is not necessary to go into the details of Mr. Mencken's theory as to the depraved nature of popular participation in political reform. Its gist is contained in his truly shocking statement that the war on the Tweed ring and its extirpation was to the "plain people" noth- ing but "sport royal"! Any one who can take one of the most inspiring civic victories in the history, not alone of a city, but of a nation, and degrade the spirit that brought it about to the level of the cockpit or the bull ring, sup- plies an argument that needs no reinforcing against his prejudices on this whole subject. Mr. Mencken justly deplores the reactions which follow upon reform successes, but unjustly concentrates the blame on the fickleness of "the rabble." This evil is not a matter of mob-psychology but of unstable human nature, high and low. These revulsions and reactions are the shame, impartially, of all classes of our communities. They permeate the educated atmosphere of fastidious clubs as extensively as they do the ignorant miasma of vulgar saloons. If they induce the "ignorant and unreflective" plebeian to sit in his shirt-sleeves with his legs up, resting his feet, on election day, instead of doing his duty at the polls, do they not equally congest the golf links with "ear- nest seekers after truth" busily engaged in sacrificing bal- lots to Bogeys? I wholly agree with Mr. Mencken's strictures on the public morality which holds it to be a relevant defense for a ballot-box stuffer "that he is kind to his little children." The sentimentalism which so frequently perverts a proper public conception of public morality is sickening. But here again the indictment should be against average human 76 NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY nature, educated or ignorant, and not against the "man in the street " as a class and alone. To this man the fact that the ballot-box stuffer is kind to his little children may carry more weight than to the man of education and cul- ture. To the latter the fact that some monopoly-breeding, law-defying, legislation-bribing, railroad-wrecking gentle- man is kind to his fellow citizens by donating to them pic- ture galleries and free libraries may carry more weight than to the former. Is not the one just as much as the other "ready to let feeling triumph over every idea of abstract justice"? Again, with Mr. Mencken's prescription for making a successful newspaper crusade there can be no quarrel, save that here once more he suggests, by referring to the news- paper as a "mob-master," that these methods are exclu- sively applicable to the same long-suffering "man in the street." These methods on which Mr. Mencken elaborates are the rather obvious ones used by every lawyer, clergy- man, statesman, or publicist the world over who has a forensic fight to make and win against some public evil accusation, iteration, cumulation, and climax. If these methods are used by "mob-masters," they are equally used by snob-servants, and incidentally by the great mass of honest newspapers which are neither the one thing nor the other. At the end of his article, having set up a man of straw which he found it impossible to knock down, Mr. Mencken patronizingly pats it on the back : "The newspaper must adapt its pleading to its client's moral limitations, just as the trial lawyer must adapt his pleading to the jury's limitations. Neither may like the job, but both must face it to gain a larger end. And that end is a worthy one in the newspaper's case quite as often as in the lawyer's, and perhaps far oftener. The art of NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY 77 leading the vulgar in itself does no discredit to its practi- tioner. Lincoln practised it unashamed, and so did Web- ster, Clay, and Henry." Alas for this well-intentioned effort at amends! It is impossible to agree with Mr. Mencken even here when he praises press and public with such faint damnation. A decent newspaper does not and must not adapt its pleadings to its clients' moral limitations. Intellectual limitations? Yes. It is restricted by a line beyond which intelligence and education alike would be at sea, and which only specialists and experts would understand. But moral limitations? No. The paper in this regard is less like the lawyer and more like the judge. A judge can properly adapt his charge in simplicity of form to the intellectual limitations of the jury, but it will scarcely be contended that he may adapt his charge in its substance to the moral limitations of the jury. No more can any self-respecting paper palter with what it believes to be the right and the truth because of any moral limitations in its constituency. Demagogic papers may do it. Class-catering papers may do it. But the decent press which lies between does not thus stultify itself. And now to Mr. Mencken's condescending conclusion: "Our most serious problems, it must be plain, have been solved orgiastically and to the tune of deafening newspa- per urging and clamor. . . . But is the net result evil? ... I doubt it. ... The way of ethical progress is not straight. . . . But if we thus move onward and up- ward by leaps and bounces, it is certainly better than not moving at all. Each time, perhaps, we slip back, but each time we stop at a higher level." Why, then, sweepingly reflect on the morals of the press, if by humanizing abstract principles, by emotionalizing academic doctrines, by personifying general theories, it 78 NEWSPAPER MORALS: A REPLY has accomplished this progress? Granted that in the heat of battle it fails to handle the cold conceptions of austere philosophers with proper scientific etiquette. Granted that it makes blunders in technical statements which to the preciosity of specialists seem inexcusable. Granted that it mixes its science and its sentiment in a manner to shock the gentlemen of disembodied intellects. Granted that the press has many more such intellectual peccadil- loes on its conscience. But if the press does these things honestly, it does them morally, and does not need to excuse them by their results, even though these results are in very truth infinitely more precious to humanity than could be those obtained by the chill endeavors of what Mr. Mencken himself, with the perfect accuracy of would-be irony, describes as "a Ca- morra of Utopian and dehumanized reformers." THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS BY EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS MOST of the criticism launched at our daily newspapers hits the wrong party. Granted that they sensationalize vice and crime, "play up" trivialities, exploit the private affairs of prominent people, embroider facts, and offend good taste with screech, blare, and color. All this may be only the means of meeting the demand, of "giving the public what it wants." The newspaper cannot be expected to remain dignified and serious now that it caters to the com- mon millions, instead of, as formerly, to the professional and business classes. To interest errand-boy and factory- girl and raw immigrant, it had to become spicy, amusing, emotional, and chromatic. For these, blame, then, the American people. There is just one deadly, damning count against the daily newspaper as it is coming to be, namely, it does not give the news. For all its pretensions, many a daily newspaper is not " giving the public what it wants." In spite of these widely trumpeted prodigies of costly journalistic "enterprise," these ferreting reporters and hurrying correspondents, these leased cables and special trains, news, good "live" news, "red-hot stuff," is deliberately being suppressed or distorted. This occurs oftener now than formerly, and bids fair to occur yet oftener in the future. And this in spite of the fact that the aspiration of the press has been upward. Venality has waned. Better and better men have been drawn into journalism, and they 80 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS have wrought under more self -restraint. The time when it could be said, as it was said of the Reverend Dr. Dodd, that one had "descended so low as to become editor of a newspaper," seems as remote as the Ice Age. The editor who uses his paper to air his prejudices, satisfy his grudges, and serve his private ambitions, is going out. Sobered by a growing realization of their social function, newspaper men have come under a sense of responsibility. Not long ago it seemed as if a professional spirit and a professional ethics were about to inspire the newspaper world; and to this end courses and schools of journalism were established, with high hopes. The arrest of this promising movement explains why nine out of ten newspaper men of fifteen years' experience are cynics. As usual, no one is to blame. The apostasy of the daily press is caused by three economic developments in the field of newspaper publishing. ii In the first place, the great city daily has become a blanket sheet with elaborate presswork, printed in mam- moth editions that must be turned out in the least time. The necessary plant is so costly, and the Associated Press franchise is so expensive, that the daily newspaper in the big city has become a capitalistic enterprise. To-day a million dollars will not begin to outfit a metropolitan news- paper. The editor is no longer the owner, for he has not, and cannot command, the capital needed to start it or buy it. The editor of the type of Greeley, Dana, Medill, Story, Halstead, and Raymond, who owns his paper and makes it his astral body, the projection of his character and ideals, is rare. Perhaps Mr. Watterson and Mr. Nelson [the late THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 81 William R. Nelson of the Kansas City Star] are the best recent representatives of the type. More and more the owner of the big daily is a business man who finds it hard to see why he should run his prop- erty on different lines from the hotel proprietor, the vaude- ville manager, or the owner of an amusement park. The editors are hired men, and they may put into the paper no more of their conscience and ideals than comports with getting the biggest return from the investment. Of course, the old-time editor who owned his paper tried to make money, no sin that ! but just as to-day the author, the lecturer, or the scholar tries to make money, namely, within the limitations imposed by his principles and his professional standards. But, now that the provider of the newspaper capital hires the editor instead of the editor hiring the newspaper capital, the paper is likelier to be run as a money-maker pure and simple a factory where ink and brains are so applied to white paper as to turn out the largest possible marketable product. The capitalist- owner means no harm, but he is not bothered by the stand- ards that hamper the editor-owner. He follows a few sim- ple maxims that work out well enough in selling shoes or cigars or sheet-music. "Give people what they want, not what you want." "Back nothing that will be unpopular." "Run the concern for all it is worth." This drifting of ultimate control into the hands of men with business motives is what is known as " the commer- cialization of the press." The significance of it is apparent when you consider the second economic development, namely, the growth of news- paper advertising. The dissemination of news and the purveying of publicity are two essentially distinct func- tions, which, for the sake of convenience, are carried on by the same agency. The one appeals to subscribers, the other 82 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS to advertisers. The one calls for good faith, the other does not. The one is the corner-stone of liberty and democracy, the other a convenience of commerce. Now, the purvey- ing of publicity is becoming the main concern of the news- paper, and threatens to throw quite into the shade the communication of news or opinions. Every year the sale of advertising yields a larger proportion of the total re- ceipts, and the subscribers furnish a smaller proportion. Thirty years ago, advertising yielded less than half of the earnings of the daily newspapers. To-day, it yields at least two thirds. In the larger dailies the receipts from advertisers are several times the receipts from the readers, in some cases constituting ninety per cent of the total revenues. As the newspaper expands to eight, twelve, and sixteen pages, while the price sinks to three cents, two cents, one cent, the time comes when the advertisers sup- port the newspaper. The readers are there to read, not to provide funds. "He who pays the piper calls the tune." When news columns and editorial page are a mere incident in the profitable sale of mercantile publicity, it is strictly "businesslike" to let the big advertisers censor both. Of course, you must not let the cat out of the bag, or you will lose readers, and thereupon advertising. As the publicity expert, Deweese, frankly puts it, "The reader must be flimflammed with the idea that the publisher is really publishing the newspaper or magazine for him." The wise owner will "maintain the beautiful and impress- ive bluff of running a journal to influence public opinion, to purify politics, to elevate public morals, etc." In the last analysis, then, the smothering of facts in deference to the advertiser finds a limit in the intelligence and alert- ness of the reading public. Handled as "a commercial proposition," the newspaper dares not suppress such news beyond a certain point, and it can always proudly point to THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 83 the unsuppressed news as proof of its independence and public spirit. The immunity enjoyed by the big advertiser becomes more serious as more kinds of business resort to advertis- ing. Formerly, readers who understood why accidents and labor troubles never occur in department stores, why dramatic criticisms are so lenient, and the reviews of books from the publishers who advertise are so good-natured, could still expect from their journal an ungloved freedom in dealing with gas, electric, railroad, and banking com- panies. But now the gas people advertise, "Cook with gas," the electric people urge you to put your sewing-ma- chine on their current, and the railroads spill oceans of ink to attract settlers or tourists. The banks and trust com- panies are buyers of space, investment advertising has sprung up like Jonah's gourd, and telephone and traction companies are being drawn into the vortex of competitive publicity. Presently, in the news-columns of the sheet that steers by the cash-register, every concern that has favors to seek, duties to dodge, or regulations to evade, will be able to press the soft pedal. A third development is the subordination of newspapers to other enterprises. After a newspaper becomes a piece of paying property, detachable from the editor's person- ality, which may be bought and sold like a hotel or mill, it may come into the hands of those who will hold it in bond- age to other and bigger investments. The magnate-owner may find it to his advantage not to run it as a newspaper pure and simple, but to make it on the sly an instru- ment for coloring certain kinds of news, diffusing certain misinformation, or fostering certain impressions or preju- dices in its clientele. In a word, he may shape its policy by non- journalistic considerations. By making his paper help his other schemes, or further his political or social 84 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS ambitions, he will hurt it as a money-maker, no doubt, but he may contrive to fool enough of the people enough of the time. Aside from such thraldom, newspapers are subject to the tendency of diverse businesses to become tied to- gether by the cross-investments of their owners. But naturally, when the shares of a newspaper lie in the safe- deposit box cheek by jowl with gas, telephone, and pipe- line stock, a tenderness for these collateral interests is likely to affect the news columns. in That in consequence of its commercialization, and its fre- quent subjection to outside interests, the daily newspaper is constantly suppressing important news, will appear from the instances that follow. They are hardly a third of the material that has come to the writer's attention. A prominent Philadelphia clothier visiting New York was caught perverting boys, and cut his throat. His firm being a heavy advertiser, not a single paper in his home city mentioned the tragedy. One New York paper took advantage of the situation by sending over an extra edi- tion containing the story. The firm in question has a large branch in a Western city. There too the local press was silent, and the opening was seized by a Chicago paper. In this same Western city the vice-president of this firm was indicted for bribing an alderman to secure the passage of an ordinance authorizing the firm to bridge an alley separating two of its buildings. Representatives of the firm requested the newspapers in which it advertised to ignore the trial. Accordingly the five English papers pub- lished no account of the trial, which lasted a week and dis- closed highly sensational matter. Only the German papers sent reporters to the trial and published the proceedings. THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 85 In a great jobbing centre, one of the most prominent cases of the United States District Attorney was the prose- cution of certain firms for misbranding goods. The facts brought out appeared in the press of the smaller centres, but not a word was printed in the local papers. In another centre, four firms were fined for selling potted cheese which had been treated with preservatives. The local newspapers stated the facts, but withheld the names of the firms a consideration they are not likely to show to the ordinary culprit. In a trial in a great city it was brought out by sworn testimony that, during a recent labor struggle which in- volved teamsters on the one hand and the department stores and the mail-order houses on the other, the employ- ers had plotted to provoke the strikers to violence by send- ing a long line of strike-breaking wagons out of their way to pass a lot on which the strikers were meeting. These wagons were the bait to a trap, for a strong force of police- men was held in readiness in the vicinity, and the governor of the state was at the telephone ready to call out the militia if a riot broke out. Fortunately, the strikers re- strained themselves, and the trap was not sprung. It is easy to imagine the headlines that would have been used if labor had been found in so diabolical a plot. Yet the newspapers unanimously refused to print this testimony. In the same city, during a strike of the elevator men in the large stores, the business agent of the elevator-starters' union was beaten to death, in an alley behind a certain emporium, by a "strong-arm" man hired by that firm. The story, supported by affidavits, was given by a respon- sible lawyer to three newspaper men, each of whom ac- cepted it as true and promised to print it. The account never appeared. In another city the sales-girls in the big shops had to 86 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS sign an exceedingly mean and oppressive contract which, if generally known, would have made the firms odious to the public. A prominent social worker carried these con- tracts, and evidence as to the bad conditions that had become established under them, to every newspaper in the city. Not one would print a line on the subject. On the outbreak of a justifiable street-car strike the newspapers were disposed to treat it in a sympathetic way. Suddenly they veered, and became unanimously hostile to the strikers. Inquiry showed that the big merchants had threatened to withdraw their advertisements unless the newspapers changed their attitude. In the summer of 1908 disastrous fires raged in the northern Lake country, and great areas of standing timber were destroyed. A prominent organ of the lumber indus- try belittled the losses and printed reassuring statements from lumbermen who were at the very moment calling upon the state for a fire patrol. When taxed with the deceit, the organ pleaded its obligation to support the market for the bonds which the lumber companies of the Lake region had been advertising in its columns. On account of agitating for teachers' pensions, a teacher was summarily dismissed by a corrupt school board, in vio- lation of their own published rule regarding tenure. An influential newspaper published the facts of school-board grafting brought out in the teacher's suit for reinstatement until, through his club affiliations, a big merchant was in- duced to threaten the paper with the withdrawal of his advertising. No further reports of the revelations ap- peared. During labor disputes the facts are usually distorted to the injury of labor. In one case, strikers held a meeting on a vacant lot enclosed by a newly-erected billboard. Forth- with appeared, in a yellow journal professing warm friend- THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 87 ship for labor, a front-page cut of the billboard and a lurid story of how the strikers had built a "stockade," behind which they intended to bid defiance to the bluecoats. It is not surprising that, when the van bringing these lying sheets appeared in their quarter of the city, the libeled men overturned it. During the struggle of carriage-drivers for a six-day week, certain great dailies lent themselves to a concerted effort of the liverymen to win public sympathy by making it appear that the strikers were interfering with funerals. One paper falsely stated that a strong force of police was being held in reserve in case of "riots," and that police- men would ride beside the non-union drivers of hearses. Another, under the misleading headline, "Two Funerals stopped by Striking Cabmen," described harmless collo- quies between hearse-drivers and pickets. This was fol- lowed up with a solemn editorial, "May a Man go to his Long Rest in Peace?" although, as a matter of fact, the strikers had no intention of interfering with funerals. The lying headline is a favorite device for misleading the reader. One sheet prints on its front page a huge "scare" headline, " 'Hang Hay wood and a Million Men will march in Revenge/ says Darrow." The few readers whose glance fell from the incendiary headline to the dispatch below it found only the following: "Mr. Darrow, in closing the ar- gument, said that 'if the jury hangs Bill Hay wood, one million willing hands will seize the banner of liberty by the open grave, and bear it on to victory.' ' In the same style, a dispatch telling of the death of an English police- man, from injuries received during a riot precipitated by suffragettes attempting to enter a hall during a political meeting, is headed, "Suffragettes kill Policeman!" The alacrity with which many dailies serve as mouth- pieces of the financial powers came out very clearly during 88 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS the recent industrial depression. The owner of one leading newspaper called his reporters together and said in effect, " Boys, the first of you who turns in a story of a lay-off or a shut-down gets the sack." Early in the depression the newspapers teemed with glowing accounts of the resump- tion of steel mills and the revival of business, all baseless. After harvest time they began to cheep, "Prosperity," "Bumper Crops," "Farmers buying Automobiles." In cities where banks and employers offered clearing-house certificates instead of cash, the press usually printed fairy tales of the enthusiasm with which these makeshifts were taken by depositors and workingmen. The numbers and sufferings of the unemployed were ruthlessly concealed from the reading public. A mass meeting of men out of work was represented as "anarchistic" or "instigated by the socialists for political effect." In one daily appeared a dispatch under the heading "Five Thousand Jobs Of- fered; only Ten apply." It stated that the Commissioner of Public Works of Detroit, misled by reports of dire dis- tress, set afoot a public work which called for five thousand men. Only ten men applied for work, and all these ex- pected to be bosses. Correspondence with the official established the fact that the number of jobs offered was five hundred, and that three thousand men applied for them! IV On the desk of every editor and sub-editor of a news- paper run by a capitalist promoter now [1910] under prison sentence lay a list of sixteen corporations in which the owner was interested. This was to remind them not to print anything damaging to these concerns. In the office these corporations were jocularly referred to as "sacred cows." THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 89 Nearly every form of privilege is found in the herd of "sacred cows" venerated by the daily press. The railroad company is a "sacred cow." At a hearing before a state railroad commission, the attorney of a ship- pers' association got an eminent magnate into the witness chair, with the intention of wringing from him the truth regarding the political expenditures of his railroad. At this point the commission, an abject creature of the rail- roads, arbitrarily excluded the daring attorney from the case. The memorable excoriation which that attorney gave the commission to its face was made to appear in the papers as the cause instead of the consequence of this exclu- sion. Subsequently, when the attorney filed charges with the governor against the commission, one editor wrote an editorial stating the facts and criticising the commission- ers. The editorial was suppressed after it was in type. The public-service company is a "sacred cow." In a city of the Southwest, last summer [1909], while houses were burning from lack of water for the fire hose, a lumber company offered to supply the firemen with water. The water company replied that they had " sufficient." Neither this nor other damaging information concerning the com- pany's conduct got into the columns of the local press. A yellow journal conspicuous in the fight for cheaper gas by its ferocious onslaughts on the "gas trust," suddenly ceased its attack. Soon it began to carry a full-page " Cook with gas" advertisement. The cow had found the en- trance to the sacred fold. Traction is a "sacred cow." The truth about Cleveland's fight for the three-cent fare has been widely suppressed. For instance, while Mayor Johnson was superintend- ing the removal of the tracks of a defunct street railway, he was served with a court order enjoining him from tearing up the rails. As the injunction was not indorsed, 8 90 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS as by law it should be, he thought it was an ordinary com- munication, and put it in his pocket to examine later. The next day he was summoned to show reason why he should not be found in contempt of court. When the facts came out, he was, of course, discharged. An examination of the seven leading dailies of the country shows that a dispatch was sent out from Cleveland stating that Mayor Johnson, after acknowledging service, pocketed the injunction, and ordered his men to proceed with their work. In the news- paper offices this dispatch was then embroidered. One paper said the mayor told his men to go ahead and ignore the injunction. Another had the mayor intimating in ad- vance that he would not obey an order if one were issued. A third invented a conversation in which the mayor and his superintendent made merry over the injunction. Not one of the seven journals reported the mayor's complete exoneration later. The tax system is a "sacred cow." During a banquet of two hundred single-taxers, at the conclusion of their state conference, a man fell in a fit. Reporters saw the trifling incident, yet the morning papers, under big head- lines, "Many Poisoned at Single-Tax Banquet," told in detail how a large number of banqueters had been pto- maine-poisoned. The conference had formulated a single- tax amendment to the state constitution, which they in- tended to present to the people for signature under the new Initiative law. One paper gave a line and a half to this most significant action. No other paper noticed it. The party system is a "sacred cow." When a county district court declared that the Initiative and Referendum amendment to the Oregon constitution was invalid, the item was spread broadcast. But when later the Supreme Court of Oregon reversed that decision, the fact was too trivial to be put on the wires. THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 91 The "man higher up" is a "sacred cow." In reporting Prosecutor Heney's argument in the Calhoun case, the leading San Francisco paper omitted everything on the guilt of Calhoun and made conspicuous certain statements of Mr. Heney with reference to himself, with intent to make it appear that his argument was but a vindication of him- self, and that he made no points against the accused. The argument for the defense was printed in full, the "points" being neatly displayed in large type at proper intervals. At a crisis in this prosecution a Washington dispatch quoted the chairman of the Appropriations Committee as stating in the House that "Mr. Heney received during 1908 $23,000, for which he performed no service whatever for the Government." It was some hours before the report was corrected by adding Mr. Tawney's concluding words, "during that year." In view of their suppression and misrepresentation of vital truth, the big daily papers, broadly speaking, must be counted as allies of those whom as Editor Dana reverently put it " God has endowed with a genius for saving, for getting rich, for bringing wealth together, for accumulating and concentrating money." In rallying to the side of the people they are slower than the weeklies, the magazines, the pulpit, the platform, the bar, the lit- erati, the intellectuals, the social settlements, and the uni- versities. Now and then, to be sure, in some betrayed and mis- governed city, a man of force takes some little sheet, prints all the news, ventilates the local situation, arouses the community, builds up a huge circulation, and proves that truth- telling still pays. But such exploits do not counter- act the economic developments which have brought on the glacial epoch in journalism. Note what happens later to such a newspaper. It is now a valuable property, and as 92 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS such it will be treated. The editor need not repeat the bold strokes that won public confidence; he has only to avoid anything that would forfeit it. Unconsciously he becomes, perhaps, less a newspaper man, more a business man. He may make investments which muzzle his paper here, form social connections which silence it there. He may tire of fighting and want to "cash in." In any case, when his newspaper falls into the hands of others, it will be run as a business, and not as a crusade. What can be done about the suppression of news? At least, we can refrain from arraigning and preaching. To urge the editor, under the thumb of the advertiser or of the owner, to be more independent, is to invite him to remove himself from his profession. As for the capitalist-owner, to exhort him to run his newspaper in the interests of truth and progress is about as reasonable as to exhort the mill- owner to work his property for the public good instead of for his private benefit. What is needed is a broad new avenue to the public mind. Already smothered facts are cutting little channels for themselves. The immense vogue of the " muck-raking " magazines is due to their being vehicles for suppressed news. Non-partisan leaders are meeting with cheering response when they found weeklies in order to reach their natural following. The Socialist Party supports two dai- lies, less to spread their ideas than to print what the cap- italistic dailies would stifle. Civic associations, municipal voters' leagues, and legislative voters' leagues, are circu- lating tons of leaflets and bulletins full of suppressed facts. Within a year [1909-10] five cities have, with the tax- payers' money, started journals to acquaint the citizens THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 93 7 with municipal happenings and affairs. In many cities have sprung up private non-partisan weeklies to report civic information. Moreover, the spoken word is once more a power. The demand for lecturers and speakers is insatiable, and the platform bids fair to recover its old prestige. The smotherers are dismayed by the growth of the Chautauqua circuit. Congressional speeches give vent to boycotted truth, and circulate widely under the frank- ing privilege. City clubs and Saturday lunch clubs are formed to listen to facts and ideas tabooed by the daily press. More is made of public hearings before committees of councilmen or legislators. When all is said, however, the defection of the daily press has been a staggering blow to democracy. Many insist that the public is able to recognize and pay for the truth. "Trust the public" and in the end merit will be rewarded. Time and again men have sunk money in starting an honest and outspoken sheet, confident that"* soon the public would rally to its support. But such ho are doomed to disappointment. The editor who turns away bad advertising or defies his big patrons cannot lay his copy on the subscriber's doorstep for as little money as the editor who purveys publicity for all it is worth; and the masses will not pay three cents when another paper that "looks just as good" can be had for a cent. In a word, the art of simulating honesty and independence has outrun the insight of the average reader. To conclude that the people are not able to recognize and pay for the truth about current happenings simply puts the dissemination of news in a class with other mo- mentous social services. Because people fail to recognize and pay for good books, endowed libraries stud the land. Because they fail to recognize and pay for good instruction, education is provided free or at part cost. Just as the 94 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS moment came when it was seen that private schools, loan libraries, commercial parks, baths, gymnasia, athletic grounds, and playgrounds would not answer, so the mo- ment is here for recognizing that the commercial news- medium does not adequately meet the needs of democratic citizenship. Endowment is necessary, and, since we are not yet wise enough to run a public-owned daily newspaper, the funds must come from private sources. In view of the fact that in fifteen years large donations aggregating more than a thousand million of dollars have been made for public pur- poses in this country, it is safe to predict that, if the use- fulness of a non-commercial newspaper be demonstrated, funds will be forthcoming. In the cities, where the secret control of the channels of publicity is easiest, there are likely to be founded financially independent newspapers, the gift of public-spirited men of wealth. The ultimate control of such a foundation constitutes a problem. A newspaper free to ignore the threats of big advertisers or powerful interests, one not to be bought, bullied, or bludgeoned, one that might at any moment blurt out the damning truth about police protection to vice, corporate tax-dodging, the grabbing of water frontage by railroads, or the non-enforcement of the factory laws, would be of such strategic importance in the struggle for wealth that desperate efforts would be made to chloroform it. If its governing board perpetuated itself by coopta- tion, it would eventually be packed with "safe" men, who would see to it that the newspaper was run in a "conserva- tive" spirit; for, in the long run, those who can watch for an advantage all the time will beat the people, who can watch only some of the time. Chloroformed the endowed newspaper will be, unless it THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS 95 be committed to the onward thought and conscience of the community. This could be done by letting vacancies on the governing board be filled in turn by the local bar asso- ciation, the medical association, the ministers' union, the degree-granting faculties, the federated teachers, the cen- tral labor union, the chamber of commerce, the associated charities, the public libraries, the non-partisan citizens' associations, the improvement leagues, and the social set- tlements. In this way the endowment would rest ulti- mately on the chief apexes of moral and intellectual worth in the city. While giving, with headline, cut, and cartoon, the inter- esting news, forgeries and accidents, society and sports, as well as business and politics, the endowed newspaper would not dramatize crime, or gossip of private affairs; above all, it would not "fake," "doctor," or sensationalize the news. Too self-respecting to use keyhole tactics, and too serious to chronicle the small beer of the wedding trous- seau or the divorce court, such a newspaper could not begin to match the commercial press in circulation. But it would reach those who reach the public through the weeklies and monthlies, and would inform the teachers, preachers, lec- turers, and public men, who speak to the people eye to eye. What is more, it would be a corrective newspaper, giving a wholesome leverage for lifting up the commercial press. The big papers would not dare be caught smothering or "cooking" the news. The revelations of an independent journal that everybody believed, would be a terror to them, and, under the spur of a competitor not to be frightened, bought up, or tired out, they would be compelled, in sheer self-preservation, tell the truth much oftener than they do. The Erie Canal handles less than a twentieth of the traffic across the State of New York, yet, by its standing 96 THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS offer of cheap transportation, it exerts a regulative pressure on railway rates which is realized only when the canal opens in the spring. On the same principle, the endowed newspaper in a given city might print only a twentieth of the daily press output, and yet exercise over the other nineteen twentieths an influence great and salutary. THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM BY HENRY WATTERSON THE daily newspaper, under modern conditions, em- braces two parts very nearly separate and distinct in their requirements the journalistic and the commercial. The aptitude for producing a commodity is one thing, and the aptitude for putting this commodity on the market is quite another thing. The difference is not less marked in newspaper-making than in other pursuits. The fram- ing and execution of contracts for advertising, for printing- paper and ink, linotyping and press- work; the handling of money and credits; the organization of the telegraphic service and postal service; the supervision of machinery - in short, the providing of the vehicle and the power that turns its wheels is the work of a single mind, and usually it is engrossing work. It demands special talent and cease- less activity and attention all day long, and every day in the year. Except it be sufficient, considerable success is out of the question. Sometimes its sufficiency is able to float an indifferent product. Without it the best product is likely to languish. The making of the newspaper, that is, the collating of the news and its consistent and uniform distribution and arrangement, the representation of the mood and tense of the time, a certain continuity, more or less, of thought and purpose, the popularization of the commodity, call for energies and capacities of another sort. The edi- tor of the morning newspaper turns night into day. When others sleep he must be awake and astir. His is the only 98 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM vocation where versatility is not a hindrance or a diversion; where the conventional is not imposed upon his personality. > )jj s } He should be many-sided, and he is often most engaging when he seems least heedful of rule. Yet nowhere is ready and sound discretion in greater or more constant need. The editor must never lose his head. Sure, no less than prompt, judgment is required at every turning. It is his business to think for everybody. Each subordinate must be so drilled and fitted to his place as to become in a sense the replica of his chief. And, even then, when at noon he goes carefully over the work of the night before, he will be fortunate if he finds that all has gone as he planned it, or could wish it. I am assuming that the make-up of the newspaper is an autocracy: the product of one man, the offspring of a policy; the man indefatigable and conscientious, the policy fixed, sober, and alert. In the famous sea-fight the riff- raff of sailors from all nations, whom -Paul Jones had picked up wherever he could find them, responded like the parts of a machine to the will of their commander. They seemed inspired, the British Captain Pearson testified before the Court of Inquiry. So in a well-ordered newspaper office, when at midnight wires are flashing and feet are hurrying, and to the onlooking stranger chaos seems to reign, the directing mind and hand have their firm grip upon the tiller-ropes, which extend from the editorial room to the composing-room, from the composing-room to the press- room, and from the press-room to the breakfast- table. II Personal journalism had its origin in the crude require- ments of the primitive newspaper. An editor, a printer, and a printer's devil, were all-sufficient. For half a cen- THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 99 tury after the birth of the daily newspaper in America, one man did everything which fell under the head of editorial work. The army of reporters, telegraphers, and writers, duly officered and classified, which has come to occupy the larger field, was undreamed of by the pioneers of Bos- ton, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Individual ownership was the rule. Little money was embarked. Commonly it was "So-and-So's paper." Whilst the stories of private war, of pistols and coffee, have been exaggerated, the early editors were much beset; were held to strict accountability for what appeared in their columns ; sometimes had to take their lives in their hands. In cer- tain regions the duello flourished one might say became the fashion. Up to the War of Secession, the instance of an editor who had not had a personal encounter, indeed, many encounters, was a rare one. Not a few editors ac- quired celebrity as "crack shots," gaining more reputation by their guns than by their pens. The familiar "Stop my paper" was personally addressed, an ebullition of individual resentment. "Mr. Swain," said an irate subscriber to the founder of the Philadelphia Ledger, whom he met one morning on his way to his place of business, "I have stopped your paper, sir I have stopped your paper." Mr. Swain was a gentleman of dignity and composure. "Indeed," said he, with a kindly intonation; "come with me and let us see about it." When the two had reached the spot where the office of the Ledger stood, nothing unusual appeared to have hap- pened: the building was still there, the force within ap- parently engaged in its customary activities. Mr. Swain looked leisurely about him, and turning upon his now expectant but thoroughly puzzled fellow townsman, he said, 100 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM "Everything seems to be as I left it last night. Stop my paper, sir! How could you utter such a falsehood!" Mr. James Gordon Bennett, the elder, was frequently and brutally assailed. So was Mr. Greeley. Mr. Pren- tice, though an expert in the use of weapons, did not escape many attacks of murderous intent. Editors fought among themselves, anon with fatal result, especially about Rich- mond in Virginia, and Nashville in Tennessee, and New Orleans. So self-respecting a gentleman, and withal so peaceful a citizen, as Mr. William Cullen Bryant, fell upon a rival journalist with a horsewhip on Broadway, in New York. The prosy libel suit has come to take the place of the tragic street duel, the courts of law to settle what was formerly submitted to the code of honor, the star part of "fighting editor" having come to be a relic of by- gone squalor and glory. The call to arms in 1861 found few of the editorial bullies ready for the fray, and no one of them made his mark as a soldier in battle. They were good only on parade. Even the South had its fill of com- bat, valor grew too common to be distinguished, and, out of a very excess of broil and blood, along with multiplied opportunities for the display of courage, gun-play got its quietus. The good old times, when it was thought that a man who had failed at all else could still keep a hotel and edit a newspaper, have passed away. They are gone forever. If a gentleman kills his man nowadays, even in honest and fair fight, they call it murder. Editors have actually to be educated to their work, and to work for their living. The soul of Bombastes has departed, and journalism is no longer irradiated and advertised by the flash of arms. We are wont to hear of the superior integrity of those days. There will always be in direct accountability a certain sense of obligation lacking to the anonymous and impersonal. Most men will think twice before they com- THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 101 mit their thoughts to print where their names are affixed. Ambition and vanity, as well as discretion, play a restrain- ing part here; they play it, even though there be no prov- ocation to danger. Yet, seeing that somebody must be somewhere back of the pen, the result would appear still to be referable to private character. Most of the personal journalists were in alliance with the contemporary politicians; all of them were the slaves of party. Many of them were without convictions, hold- ing to the measures of the time the relation held by the play-actors to the parts that come to them on the stage. Before the advent of the elder Bennett, independent jour- nalism was unknown. In the "partnership" of Seward, Weed, and Greeley, Mr. Greeley himself described it, he being "the junior member," office, no less than public printing, was the object of two members at least of the firm. Lesser figures were squires instead of partners, their chiefs as knights of old. Callender first served, then maligned, Jefferson. Croswell was the man-at-arms of the Albany Regency, valet to Mr. Van Buren. Forney played major- domo to Mr. Buchanan until Buchanan, becoming Pres- ident, left his poor follower to hustle for himself; a signal, but not anomalous, piece of ingratitude. Prentice held himself to the orders of Clay. Even Raymond, set up in business by the money of Seward's friends, could call his soul his own only toward the end of his life, and then by a single but fatal misstep brought ruin upon the property his genius had created. Not, indeed, until the latter third of the last century did independent journalism acquire considerable vogue, with Samuel Bowles and Charles A. Dana to lead it in the East, and Murat Halstead and Horace White, followed by Joseph Medill, Victor F. Lawson, Melville E. Stone, and William R. Nelson, in the West. 102 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM m The new school of journalism, sometimes called imper- sonal and taking its lead from the counting-room, which generally prevails, promises to become universal in spite of an individualist here and there uniting salient charac- teristics to controlling ownership a union which in the first place created the personal journalism of other days. |Y\ Here, however, the absence of personality is more ap- parent than real. Control must be lodged somewhere. Whether it be upstairs, or downstairs, it is bound to be if successful both single-minded and arbitrary, the embodiment of the inspiration and the will of one man; the expression made to fit the changed conditions which . have impressed themselves upon the writing and the speak- ing of our time. Eloquence and fancy, oratory and rhetoric, have for the most part given place in our public life to the language of business. More and more do budgets usurp the field of affairs. As fiction has exhausted the situations possible to imaginative writing, so has popular declamation ex- hausted the resources of figurative speech; and just as the novel seeks other expedients for arousing and holding the interest of its readers, do speakers and publicists, aban- doning the florid and artificial, aim at the simple and the lucid, the terse and incisive, the argument the main point, attained, as a rule, in the statement. To this end the counting-room, with its close kinship to the actualities of the world about it, has a definite advantage over the editorial room, as a school of instruction. Nor is there any reason why the head of the counting-room should not be as highly qualified to direct the editorial policies as the financial policies of the newspaper of which, as the agent of a corporation or an estate, he has become the executive; THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 103 the newspaper thus conducted assuming something of the character of the banking institution and the railway company, being indeed in a sense a common carrier. At least a greater show of stability and respectability, if not a greater sense of responsibility, would be likely to follow such an arrangement, since it would establish a more im- mediate relation with the community than that embraced by the system which seems to have passed away, a system which was not nearly so accessible, and was, moreover, hedged about by a certain mystery that attaches itself to midnight, to the flare of the footlights and the smell of printers' ink. I had written thus far and was about to pursue this line of thought with some practical suggestion emanating from a wealth of observation and reminiscence when, reading the Atlantic Monthly for March, I encountered the fol- lowing passage from the very thoughtful paper of Mr. Edward Alsworth Ross, entitled "The Suppression of Important News": "More and more the owner of the big daily is a business man who finds it hard to see why he should run his property on different lines from the hotel proprietor, the vaudeville manager, or the owner of an amusement park. The editors are hired men, and they may put into the paper no more of their conscience and ideals than comports with getting the biggest return from the investment. Of course, the old-time editor who owned his paper tried to make money no sin, that ! but just as to-day the author, the lec- turer, or the scholar, tries to make money, namely, within the limitations imposed by his principles and his profes- sional standards. But, now that the provider of the news- paper capital hires the editor instead of the editor hiring the newspaper capital, the paper is likelier to be run as a money-maker pure and simple a factory where ink and 104 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM brains are so applied to white paper as to turn out the largest possible marketable product. The capitalist-owner means no harm, but he is not bothered by the standards that hamper the editor*owner. He follows a few simple maxims that work out well enough in selling shoes or cigars or sheet-music." There follow many examples of the "suppression" of "news." Some of these might be called "important." Others are less so. Here enters a question as to what is "news" and what is not; a question which gives rise to frequent and sometimes considerable differences of opinion. If the newspaper manager is to make no distinction between vaudeville and journalism, between the selling of white paper disfigured by printer's ink and the selling of shoes, or sheet-music, comment would seem superfluous. I venture to believe that such a manager would nowhere be able long to hold his own against one of an ambition and intelligence better suited to supplying the require- ment of the public demand for a vehicle of communication between itself and the world at large. Now and then we see a very well-composed newspaper fail of success be- cause of its editorial character and tone. Now and then we see one succeed, having no editorial character and tone. But the rule is otherwise. The leading dailies everywhere stand for something. They are rarely with- out aspiration. Because of the unequal capabilities of those who conduct them, they have had their ups and downs : great journals, like the Chicago Times, passing out of existence through the lack of an adequate head; failing journals, like the New York World, saved from shipwreck by the timely arrival of an adequate head. My own observation leads me to believe that more is to be charged against the levity and indifference of the average newspaper perhaps I should say its ignorance THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 105 and indolence than against the suppression of important news. As a matter of fact, suppression does not suppress. Conflicting interests attend to that. Mr. Ross relates that on the desk of every editor and sub-editor of a newspaper run by a certain capitalist, who was also a promoter, lay a list of sixteen corporations in which the owner was inter- ested. This was to remind them not to print anything damaging to those particular concerns. In the office the exempted subjects were jocularly referred to as "sacred cows." This case, familiar to all newspaper men, was an extreme one. The newspaper proved a costly and ignominious failure. Its owner, who ran it on the lines of an "amuse- ment park," landed first in a bankruptcy and then in a criminal court, finally to round up in the penitentiary. Before him, and in the same city, a fellow "journalist" had been given a state-prison sentence. In another and adjacent city the editor and owner of a famous and in- fluential newspaper who had prostituted himself and his calling escaped the stripes of a convict only through exec- utive clemency. The disposition to publish everything, without regard to private feeling or good neighborhood, may be carried to an excess quite as hurtful to the community as the suppressions of which Mr. Ross tells us in his interesting resume. The newspaper which constitutes itself judge and jury, which condemns in advance of conviction, which, reversing the English rule of law, assumes the accused guilty instead of innocent, the newspaper, in short, which sets itself up as a public prosecutor, is likely to become a common scold and to arouse its readers out of all proportion to any good achieved by publicity. As in other affairs of life, the sense of decency imposes certain reserves, and also the sense of charity. 106 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM The justest complaint which may be laid at the door of the modern newspaper seems to me its invasion of the home, and the conversion of its reporters into detectives. Pre- tending to be the defender of liberty, it too often is the as- sailant of private right. Each daily issue should indeed aim to be the history of yesterday, but it should be clean as well as truthful; and as we seek in our usual walks and ways to avoid that which is nasty and ghastly, so should we, in the narration of scandal and crime, guard equally against exaggeration and pruriency, nor be ashamed to sup- press that which may be too vile to tell. In a recent article Mr. Victor Rosewater, the accom- plished editor of the Omaha Bee, takes issue with Mr. Ross upon the whole line of his argument, which he subjects to the critical analysis of a practical journalist. The muck-raking magazines, so extolled by Mr. Ross, are shown by Mr. Rosewater to be the merest collection of already printed newspaper material, the periodical writer having time to put them together in more connected form. He also shows that the Chautauqua circuits are but the ema- nations of newspaper advertising; and that, if newspapers of one party make suppressions in the interest of their party, the newspapers of the other are ready with the antidote. Obviously, Mr. Ross is either a newspaper sub- altern, or a college professor. In either case he is, as Mr. Rosewater shows, a visionary. In nothing does this betray itself so clearly as in the suggestion of "an endowed newspaper," which is Mr. Ross's remedy for the evils he enumerates. "Because newspapers, as a rule, prefer construction to destruction," says Mr. Rosewater, "they are accused by Mr. Ross of malfeasance for selfish purposes. True, a newspaper depends for its own prosperity upon the pros- perity of the community in which it is published. The THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 107 newspaper selfishly prefers business prosperity to business adversity. A panic is largely psychological, and the news- papers can do much to aggravate or to mitigate its sever- ity. There is no question that to the willful efforts of the newspapers as a body to allay public fear and to restore business confidence is to be credited the short duration and comparative mildness of the last financial cataclysm. Would an endowed newspaper have acted differently? Most people would freely commend the newspapers for what they did to start the wheels of industry again re- volving, and this is the first time I have seen them con- demned for suppressing 'important news' of business calamity and industrial distress in subservience to a wor- ship of advertising revenue." The truth of this can hardly be denied. Most fair- minded observers will agree with Mr. Rosewater that "a few black sheep in the newspaper fold do not make the whole flock black, nor do the combined imperfections of all newspapers condemn them to failure"; and I cannot resist quoting entire the admirable conclusion with which a recognized newspaper authority disposes of a thoroughly theoretic newspaper critic. "Personally," says Mr. Rosewater, "I would like to see the experiment of an endowed newspaper tried, be- cause I am convinced comparison would only redound to the advantage of the newspaper privately conducted as a commercial undertaking. The newspaper most akin to the endowed newspaper in this country is published in the interest of the Christian Science Church. With it, * important news ' is news calculated to promote the prop- aganda of the faith, and close inspection of its columns would disclose news-suppression in every issue. On the other hand, a daily newspaper, standing on its own bot- tom, must have readers to make its advertising space 108 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM valuable, and without a reasonable effort to cover all the news and command public confidence, the standing and clientage of the paper cannot be successfully maintained. The endowed paper pictured to us as the ideal paper, run by a board of governors filled in turn by representatives of the various uplift societies enumerated by Professor Ross, would blow hot and would blow cold, would have no consistent policy or principles, would be unable to alter the prevailing notion of what constitutes important news, and would be from the outset busily engaged in a work of news-suppression to suit the whims of the particular hobby-riders who happened for the moment to be in dom- inating control." In journalism, as in statesmanship, the doctrinaire is more confident than the man of affairs. So, in war, the lieutenant is bolder in the thought than the captain in the action. Often the newspaper subaltern, distrusting his chief, calls that "mercenary" which is in reality "dis- crimination." It is a pity that there is not more of this latter in our editorial practice. IV Disinterestedness, unselfish devotion to the public interest, is the soul of true journalism as of true states- manship; and this is as likely to proceed from the count- ing-room as from the editorial room; only, the business manager must be a journalist. The journalism of Paris is personal, the journalism of London is impersonal that is to say, the one illustrates the self-exploiting, individualized star-system, the other the more sedate and orderly, yet not less responsible, com- mercial system; and it must be allowed that, in both dig- nity and usefulness, the English is to be preferred to the THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 109 French journalism. It is true that English publishers are sometimes elevated to the peerage. But this is no- wise worse than French and American editors becoming candidates for office. In either case, the public and the press are losers in the matter of the service rendered, be- cause journalism and office are so antipathetic that their union must be destructive to both. The upright man of business, circumspect in his every- day behavior and jealous of his commercial honor, needs only to be educated in the newspaper business to bring to it the characteristic virtues which shine and prosper in the more ambitious professional and business pursuits. The successful man in the centres of activity is usually a worldly-wise and prepossessing person. Other things being equal, success of the higher order inclines to those qualites of head and heart, of breeding and education and association, which go to the making of what we call a gentleman. The element of charm, scarcely less than the elements of energy, integrity, and penetration, is a prime ingredient. Add breadth and foresight, and we have the greater result of fortune and fame. All these essentials to preeminent manhood must be fulfilled by the newspaper which aspires to preeminence. And there is no reason why this may not spring from the business end, why they may not exist and flourish there, exhaling their perfume into every department; in short, why they may not tempt ambition. The newspapers, as Hamlet observes of the players, are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. It were indeed better to have a bad epitaph when you die than their ill report while you live, even from those of the baser sort; how much more from a press having the confidence and respect and yet more than these, the affection of the commu- nity? Hence it is that special college training is beginning 110 THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM to be thought of, and occasionally tried; and, while this is subject to very serious disadvantage on the experimental side, its ethical value may in the long run find some way to give it practical application and to make it permanent as an arm of the newspaper service. Assuredly, character is an asset, and nowhere does it pay surer and larger divi- dends than in the newspaper business. We are passing through a period of transition. The old system of personal journalism having gone out, and the new system of counting-room journalism having not quite reached a full realization of itself, the editorial func- tion seems to have fallen into a lean and slippered state, the matters of tone and style honored rather in the breach than in the observance. Too many ill-trained, uneducated lads have graduated out of the city editor's room by sheer force of audacity and enterprise into the more important posts. Too often the counting-room takes no supervision of the editorial room beyond the immediate selling value of the paper the latter turns out. Things upstairs are left at loose ends. There are examples of opportunities lost through absentee landlordism. These conditions, however, are ephemeral. They will yield before the progressive requirements of a process of popular evolution which is steadily lifting the masses out of the slough of degeneracy and ignorance. The dime novel has not the vogue it once had. Neither has the party organ. Readers will not rest forever content under the impositions of fake or colored news; of misleading headlines; of false alarums and slovenly writing. Already they begin to discriminate, and more and clearly they will learn to discriminate, between the meretricious and the true. THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN JOURNALISM 111 The competition in sensationalism, to which we owe the yellow press, as it is called, will become a competition in cleanliness and accuracy. The counting-room, which is next to the people and carries the purse, will see that de- cency pays, that good sense and good faith are good invest- ments, and it will look closer to the personal character and the moral product of the editorial room, requiring better equipment and more elevated standards. There will never again be a Greeley, or a Raymond, or a Dana, playing the role of "star" and personally exploited by everything appearing in journals which seemed to exist mainly to glorify them. Each was in his way a man of superior attainments. Each thought himself an unselfish servant of the public. Yet each had his limitations his ambi- tions and prejudices, his likes and dislikes, intensified and amplified by the habit of personalism, often unconscious. And, this personal element eliminated, why may not the impersonal head of the coming newspaper proud of his profession, and satisfied with the results of its ministra- tion render a yet better account to God and the people in unselfish devotion to the common interest? THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BY AN OBSERVER THE question of suppressed or tainted news has in recent years been repeatedly agitated, and reformers of all brands have urged that the majority of the newspapers of the country are business-tied that they are ruled according to the sordid ambition of the counting-house rather than by the untrammeled play of the editorial intellect. Capi- talism is alleged to be playing ducks and drakes with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of a free press. The most important instance of criticism of this kind is afforded by current attacks upon the Associated Press. The Associated Press, as everybody knows, is the greatest news-gathering organization in the world; it supplies with their daily general information more than half the popula- tion of the United States. That it should be accused, in these times of class controversy and misunderstanding, of being a "news trust," and of coloring its news in the inter- est of capital and reaction, is therefore an excessively grave matter. Yet in the last six months it has been accused of both those things. So persistent has been the assertion of certain socialists that the Associated Press colors industrial news in the interest of the employer, that its management has sued them for libel. That it is a trust is the contention of one of its rivals, the Sun News Bureau of New York, whose prayer for its dissolution under the Sherman law, as a monopoly in restraint of trade, is now before the Depart- ment of Justice in Washington. 1 1 This charge made by the New York Sun, in February, 1914, was not sustained in an opinion given by the Attorney General of the United States on March 17, 1915. ED. THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 113 To the writer, the main questions at issue, so far as the public is concerned, seem to be as follows : 1. Is the business of collecting and distributing news in bulk essentially monopolistic? 2. If it is, and if it can not be satisfactorily performed by an unlimited number of competitive agencies (that is, individual newspapers), is the Associated Press in theory and practice the best type of centralized organization for the purpose? The first question presents little difficulty to the practi- cal journalist. A successful agency for the gathering of news must be monopolistic. No newspaper is rich enough, the attention of no editor is ubiquitous enough, to be able to collect at first hand a tithe of the multitudinous items which a public of catholic curiosity expects to find neatly arranged on its breakfast table. Take the large journals of New York and Boston, with their columns of news from all parts of the United States and the world. Their bills for telegrams and cablegrams alone would be prohibitive of dividends, to say nothing of their bills for the collection of the news. A public educated by a number of newspapers with their powers of observation and instruction whetted to superlative excellence by keen competition would no doubt be ideal; but a journalistic Utopia of that kind is no more feasible than other Utopias. Unlimited and un- assisted competition between, say, six newspapers in the same city or district would be about as feasible economic- ally as unlimited competition between six railway lines run- ning from Boston to New York. The need for a common service of foreign and national news must therefore be ad- mitted. To supply such a service, even in these days of especially cheap telegraph and cable rates for press mat- ter, requires a great deal of money, and a press agency has a great deal of money to spend only if it has also a large number of customers. 114 THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS As the number of newspapers is limited, it is clear that the press agency has strong claims to be recognized as a public service, and to be classed with railways, telephones, telegraphs, waterworks, and many other forms of corporate venture which even the wildest radical admits cannot be subjected to the anarchy of unrestricted competition. Thus the simple charge that the Associated Press is a monopoly cannot be held to condemn it. But, to invert Mr. Roosevelt's famous phrase, there are bad trusts as well as good trusts. That the Associated Press is powerful enough to be a bad trust if those who control it so desire must be admitted offhand. It is a tremendously effective organization. Its service is supplied to more than 850 of the leading newspapers, with a total circulation of, prob- ably, about 20,000,000 copies a day. The Associated Press is the child of the first effort at cooperative news- gathering ever made. Back in the for- ties of the last century, before the Atlantic cable was laid, newspapers began to spend ruinous sums in getting the earliest news from Europe. Those were the days in which the first ship-news dispatch-boats were launched to meet vessels as they entered New York harbor, and to race back with the news to their respective offices. The competition grew to the extent even of sending fast boats all the way to Europe, and soon became extravagant enough to cause its collapse. Then seven New York newspapers organized a joint service. This service, which was meant primarily to cover European news, grew slowly to cover the United States. Newspapers in other cities were taken into it on a reciprocal basis. The news of the Association was sup- plied at that time in return for a certain sum, the news- papers undertaking on their part to act as the local corre- spondents of the Association. A reciprocal arrangement with Renter's, the great European agency, followed, THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 115 whereby it supplied the Associated Press with its foreign service, and the Associated Press gave to Renter's the use of its American service. Even so, the Associated Press did not carry all before it. In the seventies a number of Western newspapers formed the Western Associated Press. A period of sharp competi- tion followed, but in 1882 the two associations signed a treaty of partnership for ten years. They were not long in supreme control of the field, however. The Associated Press of those days, like its successor to-day, was a close corporation in the sense that its members could and did veto the inclusion of rivals. As the West grew, new news- papers sprang up and were kept in the cold by their estab- lished rivals. The result was the United Press, which soon worked up an effective service. The Associated Press tried to cripple it by a rule that no newspaper subscribing to its service should have access to the news of the Associated Press; but in spite of the rule the United Press waxed strong and might have become a really formidable competitor had not the Associated Press been able to buy a controlling share in it. A harmonious business agreement followed; but in accordance with the business methods of those days the public was not apprized of the agreement, and when, in 1892, its existence became known, there was a row and a readjustment. The United Press absorbed the old Associated Press of New York, and the Western Associated Press again became independent. Renter's agency contin- ued to supply both associations with its European service. But the ensuing period of competition did not last. Three years later, the Western Associated Press achieved a monopolistic agreement with Renter's, carried the war into the United Press territory, the South and the coun- try east of the Alleghanies, got a number of New York newspapers to join it, and effected a national organization. 116 THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS That national organization is, to all intents and pur- poses, the Associated Press of to-day. The only really important change has been in its transference as a com- pany from the jurisdiction of Illinois to that of New York. This change was accomplished in 1900, owing to an ad- verse judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois. To grasp the significance of that judgment, and indeed the current agitation against the Associated Press, it is necessary to sketch briefly its rules and methods. The Associated Press is not a commercial company in the sense that it is a dividend-hunting concern. Under the terms of its present charter, the corporation "is not to make a profit or to make or declare dividends and is not to en- gage in the selling of intelligence or traffic in the same." It is simply meant to be the common agent of a number of subscribing newspapers, for the interchange of news which each collects in its own district, and for the collection of news such as subscribers cannot collect singlehanded : that is, foreign news and news concerning certain classes of domestic happenings. Its board of directors consists of journalists and publishers connected with subscribing news- papers, who serve without payment. Its executive work is done by a salaried general manager and his assistants. It is financed on a basis of weekly assessments levied, ac- cording to their size and custom, upon newspapers which are members. The sum thus collected comes to about $3,000,000 a year. It is spent partly for the hire of special wires from the telegraph companies, and partly for the maintenance of special news-collecting staffs. The mileage of leased wires is immense, amounting to about 22,000 miles by day and 28,000 miles by night. Nor does the organization, as some of its critics seem to imagine, get any THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 117 special privileges from the telegraph companies. Such privileges belonged to its early history, when business standards were lower than they are now. The Associated Press has at least one member in every city of any size in the country. That in itself insures it a good news-service; but, as indicated above, it has in all important centres a bureau of its own. Important events, whether fixed, like national conventions, or fortuitous, like strikes or floods or shipwrecks, it covers more compre- hensively than any single newspaper can do. Its foreign service is ubiquitous. It no longer depends upon its ar- rangement with Reuter, and other foreign news-agencies: early in the present century the intelligence thus collected was found to lack the American point of view, and an extensive foreign service was formed, with local headquar- ters in London, Paris, and other European capitals, Peking, Tokyo, Mexico, and Havana, and with scores of corre- spondents all over the world. Enough has been said to show that its efficiency and the manner of its organization combine to give the Associated Press a distinct savor of monopoly. As the Sun News Bureau and other rivals have found, it cannot be effectively competed against. Too many of the richest and most powerful newspapers belong to it. Is it a harmful monopoly? Its critics, as explained above, are busy proving that it is. They urge that, being a close corporation, it stifles trade in the selling of news, and that it is not impartial. The first argument is based upon the following facts. Membership in the Associated Press is naturally valuable. An Associated Press franchise to a newspaper in New York or Chicago is worth from $50,000 to $200,000.* To share 1 In the appraisal of the estate of Joseph Pulitzer in 1914, the two Asso- ciated Press franchises held by the New York World, one for the morning and one for the evening edition, were valued at $240,000 each. ED. 118 THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS such a privilege is not in human or commercial nature. One of the first rules of the organization is, therefore, that no new newspaper can be admitted without the consent of members within competitive radius. Naturally, that as- sent is seldom given. This "power of protest" has not been kept without a struggle. The law-suit of 1900 was due to it. The Chicago Inter-Ocean was refused admission, 1 and went to law. The case went to the Supreme Court of Illinois, which ruled that a press agency like the Associated Press was in the nature of a public service and as such ought to be open to everybody. To have yielded to the judgment would have smashed the Associated Press, so it reorganized under the laws of New York, with the moral satisfaction of knowing that the courts of Missouri had upheld what the Illinois court had condemned. Its new constitution, which is that of to-day, keeps in effect the right of protest, the only difference being that a disappointed applicant for membership gets the not very useful consolation of being able to appeal to the association in the slender hope that four-fifths of the members will vote for his admission. The practical working of the rule has undoubtedly been monopolistic; not so much because it has rendered the Associated Press a monopoly, but because it has rendered it the mother, potential and sometimes actual, of countless small monopolies. On account of the size of the United States and the diverse interests of the various sections, there is in our country no daily press with a national cir- culation. Newspapers depend primarily upon their local constituencies. In each journalistic geographic unit, if the expression may be allowed, one or more newspapers possess the Associated Press franchise. Such newspapers have in the excellent and comparatively cheap Associated Press service an instrument for monopoly hardly less valu- 1 This is an error which is corrected in Mr. Stone's reply, cf . p. 124. THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS lid able than a rebate-giving railway may be to a commercial corporation. It is also alleged by some of its enemies that the Associated Press still at times enjoins its members against taking simultaneously the service of its rival. It is easy to argue that, because the Associated Press is a close corporation, it cannot be a monopoly, and that those who are really trying to make a "news trust" of it are they who insist that it ought to be open to all comers; but in practice the argument is a good deal of a quibble. The facts remain that, as shown above, an effective news-agency has to be tremendously rich; that to be tremendously rich it has to have prosperous constituents ; and that the large majority of prosperous newspapers of the country belong to the Associated Press. In the writer's opinion it would be virtually impossible, as things stand, for any of the Associated Press's rivals to become the Associated Press's equal, upon either a commercial or a cooperative basis. in The tremendous importance of the question of the fair- ness of the Associated Press service is now apparent. If it is deliberately tainted, as the socialists and radicals aver, there is virtually no free press in the country. The ques- tion is a very delicate one. Enemies of the Associated Press assert in brief that its stories about industrial troubles are colored in the interest of the employer; that its political news shows a similar bias in favor of the pluto- cratic party, whatever that may be; that, in fact, it is used as a class organ. In the Presidential campaign of 1912, Mr. Roosevelt's followers insisted that the doings of their candidates were blanketed. In the recent labor troubles [1914] in West Virginia, Michigan, and Colorado, the 120 THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS friends of labor have made the same complaint of one- sidedness in the interest of the employer. Not only do the directors of the Associated Press deny all insinuations of unfairness, but they argue that partisan- ship, and especially political partisanship, would be impos- sible in view of the multitudinous shades of political opinion represented by their constituents. They can also adduce with justice the fact that in nearly every campaign more than one political manager has accused them of favoritism, only to retract when the heat of the campaign was over. The charge of industrial and social partisanship they meet with a point-blank denial. It is impossible in the space of this paper to sift the evidence pro and con. Pending action by the courts the only safe thing to do is to look at the question in terms of tendencies rather than of facts. The Associated Press, it has been shown, tends to be a monopoly. Does it tend to be a one-sided monopoly? The writer believes that it does. He believes that it may fairly be said that the Associated Press as a corporation is inclined to see things through conservative spectacles, and that its correspondents, despite the very high average of their fairness, tend to do the same thing. It could hardly be otherwise, although it is possible that there is nothing deliberate in the tendency. Nearly all the subscribers to the Associated Press are the most respectable and success- ful newspaper publishers in then- neighborhoods. They belong to that part of the community which has a stake in the settled order of things ; their managers are business men among business men; they have relations with the local magnates of finance and commerce: naturally, whatever their political views may be (and the majority of the pow- erful organs of the country are conservative), their aggre- gate influence tends to be on the side of conservatism. The tendency, too, is enhanced by the articles under THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 121 which the Associated Press is incorporated. There is special provision against fault-finding on the part of mem- bers. The corporation is given the right to expel a mem- ber "for any conduct on his part or the part of any one in his employ or connected with his newspaper, which in its absolute discretion it shall deem of such a character as to be prejudicial to the interest and welfare of the corpora- tion and its members, or to justify such expulsion. The action of the members of the corporation in such regard shall be final, and there shall be no right of appeal or review of such action." The Associated Press rightly prides itself upon the standing of its correspondents. The majority of them are drawn from the ranks of the matter-of-fact re- spectable. In the nature of their calling, they are not likely to be economists or theoretical politicians. In the case of a strike, for instance, their instinct might well be to go to the employer or the employer's lieutenant for news rather than to the strike-leader. Whether the Associated Press is a monopoly within the meaning of the anti-trust law, whether it actually colors news as the socialists aver, must be left to the courts to decide. The point to be noticed here is that it might color news if it wanted to, and that it does exercise certain monopolistic functions. That in itself is a dangerous state of affairs: but it seems to be one that might be rectified. The Illinois Supreme Court has pointed the way. The news-agency is essentially monopolistic. It has much in common with the ordinary public-utility monopoly. It should therefore be treated like a public-utility corpora- tion. It should be subject to government regulation and supervision, and its service should be open to all customers. Were this done, the Associated Press would be altered but not destroyed. Its useful features would surely remain and its drawbacks as surely be lessened. The right of pro- 10 122 THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS test would be entirely swept away; membership would be unlimited; the threat of expulsion for fault-finding would be automatically removed from above the heads of mem- bers; all newspapers of all shades would be free to apply the corrective of criticism; and if its news were none the less unfair, some arrangement could presumably be made for government restraint. The Press Association of England is an unlimited coop- erative concern. Any newspaper can subscribe to it, and new subscribers are welcome. Especially in the provincial field, it is as powerful a factor in British journalism as the Associated Press is in the journalism of the United States, yet its very openness has saved it from the taint of par- tiality. To organize the Associated Press on the same lines would, of course, entail hardship to its present constitu- ents. They would be exposed to fierce local competition. The value of their franchises would dwindle. Such rival agencies as exist might be ruined, for they could hardly compete with the Associated Press in the open market. But it is difficult to see how American journalism would suffer from a regulated monopoly of that kind; and the public would certainly be benefited, for it would continue to enjoy the excellent service of the Associated Press, with its invaluable foreign telegrams and its comprehensive domestic news; it would be safeguarded to no small extent from the danger of local or national news-monopolies and from insidiously tainted news. Such a reform, if reform there has to be, would, in a word, be constructive. The alternatives to it, as the writer understands the situation, would be destructive and em- pirical. The organization of the Associated Press would either be cut to pieces or destroyed. There would thus be a chaos of ineffective competition among either coopera- tive or commercial press agencies. Equal competition THE PROBLEM OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 123 among a number of cooperative associations would, for reasons already explained, mean comparatively ineffective and weak services. Competition among commercial agen- cies would have even less to recommend it. The latter must by their nature be more susceptible to special influ- ences than the cooperative agency. They are controlled by a few business men, not by their customers. Compet- ing commercial agencies would almost inevitably come to represent competing influences in public life; while, if worse came to worst, a commercialized "news trust" would clearly be more dangerous than a cooperative news trust. The great reactionary influences of business would have freer play upon its directors than they can have upon the directors of an organization like the Associated Press. If it be decided that even the Associated Press is not im- mune from such influences, the public should, the writer believes, think twice before demanding its destruction, in- stead of its alteration to conform with the modern con- ception of the public-service corporation. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY BY MELVILLE E. STONE [A letter to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly, dated August 1, 191k] AN article under the title, "The Problem of The Asso- ciated Press," appeared in the July issue of the Atlantic. It was anonymous and may be without claim to regard. It is marred by several mistakes of fact. Some of them are inexcusable: the truth might so easily have been learned. Nevertheless it is desirable that everybody should know all about the Associated Press, whether it is an unlawful and dangerous monopoly, or whether it is in the business of circulating "tainted news." Its telegrams are published in full or in abbreviated form, in nearly 900 daily news- papers having an aggregate circulation of many millions of copies. Upon the accuracy of these news dispatches, one half of the people of the United States depend for the conduct of their various enterprises, as well as for the facts upon which to base their opinions of the activities of the world. With a self-governing nation, it is all important that such an agency as the Associated Press furnish as nearly as may be the truth. To mislead is an act of treason. The writer's history is at fault. For instance, the former Associated Press never bought a controlling share of the old-time United Press, as he alleges. Nor did the Chicago Inter-Ocean go to law because it was refused admission. It was a charter member; it admittedly violated a by-law, discipline was administered and against this discipline the law was invoked, and a decision adverse to the then exist- ing Associated Press resulted. The assertion that a "fran- chise to a newspaper in New York or Chicago is worth THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY 125 from $50,000 to $200,000," will amuse thousands of people who know that five morning Associated Press newspapers of Chicago, the Chronicle, the Record, the Times, the Freie Presse, and the Inter-Ocean, have ceased publication in the somewhat recent past, and their owners have not received a penny for their so-called "franchises." The Boston Traveler and Evening Journal were absorbed and their memberships thrown away. The Christian Science Moni- tor voluntarily gave up its membership and took another service which it preferred. The Hartford Post, Bridgeport Post, New Haven Union, and Schenectady Union did the same. Cases where Associated Press papers have ceased publication have not been infrequent. Witness the Wor- cester Spy, St. Paul Globe, Minneapolis Times, Denver Re- publican, San Francisco Call, New Orleans Picayune, In- dianapolis Sentinel, and Philadelphia Times, as well as many others. The statement that the Press Association of England is an unlimited cooperative organization betrays incomplete information. Instead, it is a share company with an issued capital of 49,440 sterling. On this capital, in 1913, it made 3,708. 9. 10, or nearly eight per cent. And it had in its treasury at the end of that year a surplus of 23,281. 19. 6, or a sum nearly equal to fifty per cent, of its capitaliza- tion. It sells news to newspapers, clubs, hotels, and news- rooms. It is not, as is the Associated Press, a clearing- house for the exchange of news. It gathers all its informa- tion by its own employees and sells it outright. Finally, it does not serve all applicants, but declines, as it always has, to furnish its news to the London papers. But there is a more important matter. It is said that the business of collecting and distributing news is essentially monopolistic. But how can this be? The field is an open one. A single reporter may enter it, and so may an associa- 126 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY tion of reporters. The business in any case may be con- fined to the news of a city or it may be extended to include a state, a nation, or the world. The material facilities for the transmission of news, so far as they are of a public or quasi-public nature, the mail or the telegraph, are open to the use of all on the same terms. The subject-matter of news, events of general interest, are not property and can- not be appropriated. The element of property exists only in the story of the event which the reporter makes and the diligence which he uses to bring it to the place of pub- lication. This element of property is simply the right of the reporter to the fruit of his own labor. The "Recessional" was a report of the Queen's Jubilee. It was made by Rudyard Kipling and was his property for that reason, to be disposed of by him as he thought proper. He might have copyrighted it and reserved to himself the exclusive right of publication during the period of the copy- right. He chose rather to use his common-law right of first publication and he did this by selling it to the London Times. He was not under obligation, moral or legal, to sell it at the same time to any other publisher. Every other reporter stands upon the same footing and, as the author of his story, is, by every principle of law and equity, entitled to a monopoly of his manuscript until he voluntarily assigns it or surrenders it to the public. He does not monopolize the news. He cannot do that, for real news is as woman's wit, of which Rosalind said, "Make the doors upon [it] and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the keyhole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney." The reporter as a mere laborer, engaged in personal service, is simply free from compulsion to give or sell his labor to one seek- ing it. Such is the state of the law to-day. * And the English courts go further and uniformly hold THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY 127 that news telegrams may not be pirated, even after pub- lication. In a dozen British colonies statutory protection of such despatches is given for varying periods. In this country there have been a number of decisions looking to the same end. The output of the Associated Press is not the news; it is a story of the news, written by reporters employed to serve the membership. The organization issues no newspaper; it prints nothing. As a reporter, it brings its copy to the editor, who is free to print it, abbre- viate it, or throw it away. And to this reporter's work, the reporter and the members employing him have, by law and morals, undeniably an exclusive right. The next question involves the integrity of the Asso- ciated Press service. The cases of alleged bias he cites are unfortunate. Any claim that the doings of the Progress- ives in 1912 were "blanketed" by the Associated Press is certainly unwarranted. Our records show that the organ- ization reported more than three times as many words con- cerning the activities of the Progressives as it did concerning those of all their opponents combined. There were reasons for this. It was a new party in the field, and naturally awakened unusual interest. But also, it should be said that Colonel Roosevelt has expert knowledge of newspaper methods. He understands the value of preparing his speeches in advance and furnishing them in time to enable the Associated Press to send them to its members by mail. They are put in type in the newspaper offices leisurely and the proofs are carefully read. When one of his speeches is delivered, a word or two by telegraph "releases" it, and a full and accurate publication of his views results. While he was President he often gave us his messages a month in advance; they were mailed to Europe and to the Far East, and appeared in the papers abroad the morning after their delivery to Congress. Before he went to Africa, the 128 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY speeches he delivered a year later at Oxford and in Paris were prepared, put in type, proof-read, and laid away for use when required. This is not an unusual or an unwise practice. It assures a speaker wide publicity and saves him the annoyance of faulty reporting. Neither Mr. Wilson nor Mr. Taft was able to do this, although fre- quently urged to do so. They spoke extemporaneously, often late in the evening, and under conditions which made it physically impossible to make a satisfactory report, or to transmit it by wire broadcast over the country. As to the West Virginia coal strike : a magazine charged that the Associated Press had suppressed the facts and that as a consequence no one knew there had been trouble. The authors were indicted for libel. One witness only has yet been heard. He was called by the defense, and in the taking of his deposition it was disclosed that at the date of the publication over 93,000 words had been delivered by the Associated Press to the New York papers. Something like 60 columns respecting the matter had been printed. However, "The point to be noticed," says your writer, "is that it [the Associated Press] might color news if it wanted to, and that it does exercise certain monopolistic functions. That in itself is a dangerous state of affairs; but it seems to be one that might be rectified." And, as a remedy, he proposes that "its service should be open to all customers." This is most interesting. If the news-service is untrustworthy, it would naturally seem plain that the activities of the agency should be restricted, not extended. Instead of enlarging its field of operations, there should be, if possible, a law forbidding it to take in any new members, or, indeed, summarily putting it out of business. If the Associated Press is corrupt, it is too large now, and no other newspaper should be subjected to its baleful influence. Your critic adds that then, "if its news were none the THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY 129 less unfair, some arrangement could presumably be made for government restraint." Since the battle against gov- ernment control of the press was fought nearly two cen- turies ago, it seems scarcely worth while to waste much effort over this suggestion. Censorship by the king's agents was the finest flower of mediaeval tyranny. It is hard to believe that anyone, in this hour, should suggest a return to it. Under the closely censored method of this cooperative organization, notwithstanding the wide range of its opera- tions, and although its service has included millions of words every month, it is proper to say that there has never been a trial for libel, nor have the expenses in connection with libel suits exceeded a thousand dollars in the aggre- gate. This should be accepted as some evidence of the standard of accuracy maintained. As to the refusal of the Associated Press to admit to membership every applicant, the suggestion is made that this puts such a limit on the number of newspapers as to "stifle trade in the selling of news." Thus, says your critic, the Association is " the mother, potential and some- times actual, of countless small monopolies." In reply, it may be said that we are in no danger of a dearth of news- papers. There are more news journals in the United States than in all the world beside. If the whole foreign world were divided into nations of the size of this country, each nation would have but 80 daily newspapers, while we have over 2,400. And as to circulation, we issue a copy of a daily paper for every three of our citizens who can read and are over ten years of age. With our methods of rapid transportation, hundreds of daily papers might be dis- continued, and still leave every citizen able to have his morning paper delivered at his breakfast table. Every morning paper between New York and Chicago might be 130 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY suppressed, and yet, by the fast mail trains, papers from the two terminal cities could be delivered so promptly that no one in the intervening area would be left without the current world's news. Every angle of every fad, or ism, outside the walls of Bedlam, finds an advocate with the largest freedom of expression. Our need is not for more papers, but for better papers papers issuing truthful news and with clearer sense of perspective as to news. Entirely independent of the Associated Press, or any influence it might have upon the situation, there has been a noticeable shrinkage in the number of important news- papers in the recent past. One reason has been the lack of demand by the public for the old-time partisan journal. Instead, the very proper requirement has been for papers furnishing the news impartially, and communities there- fore no longer divide, as formerly, on political lines in their choice of newspapers. The increased cost of white paper and of labor has also had an effect. Since there are some 500 or more daily newspapers get- ting on very well without the advantage of the Associated Press "franchises," it can hardly be said that we have reached a stage where this service is indispensable. This is strikingly true in the light of the fact that in a number of cities the papers making the largest profits are those that have not, nor have ever had, membership in the Asso- ciated Press. It will be agreed at once that private right must ever give way to public good. If it can be shown that, as con- tended, the national welfare requires that those who, with- out any advantage over their fellow editors, have built up an efficient cooperative news-gathering agency, must share the accumulated value of the good-will they have achieved, with those who have been less energetic, we may have to give heed to the claim. Such a contention, so persistently THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY 131 urged as it has been, is certainly flattering to the member- ship and management of the Associated Press. But, however agreeable it always is to divide up other people's property, before settling the matter there are some things to think of. First, it must be the public good that forces this invasion of private right, not the desire of someone who, with an itch to start a newspaper, feels that he would prefer the Associated Press service. Second, the practical effect of a rule such as was laid down by the Illinois Supreme Court, requiring the organization to ren- der service to all applicants, must be carefully considered. News is not a commodity of the nature of coal, or wood. It is incorporeal. It does not pass from seller to buyer in the way ordinary commodities do. Although the buyer receives it, the seller does not cease to possess it. In order to make a news-gathering agency possible, it has been found necessary to limit, by stringent rules, the use of the service by the member. Thus each member of the Asso- ciated Press is prohibited from making any use of the dispatches furnished him, other than to publish them in his newspaper. If such a restriction were not imposed, any member, on receipt of his news service, might at once set up an agency of his own and put an end to the general organization . This rule, as well as all disciplinary measures , would disappear under the plan proposed by the critic in the Atlantic. A buyer might be expelled, but to-morrow he could demand readmission. There would in practice no longer be members with a right of censorship over the management; instead, there would be cne seller and an unlimited number of buyers. Then, indeed, there would be a monopoly of the worst sort. And government censor- ship, with all of its attendant and long since admitted evils, would follow. Under a Republican administration, we should have a Republican censor; under a Democratic 132 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A REPLY administration, a Democratic censor. And a free press would no longer exist. Absolute journalistic inerrancy is not possible. But we are much nearer it to-day than ever before. And it is toward approximate inerrancy in its despatches that the Associated Press is striving. If in its method of organiza- tion, or in its manner of administration, it is violating any law, or is making for evil, then it should be punished, or suppressed. If any better method for securing an hon- est, impartial news service can be devised, by all means let us have it. But that the plan proposed would better the situation, is clearly open to doubt. CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR BY PARACELSUS THERE is something at once deliciously humorous and pathetic, to the editor of a small daily in the provinces, about that old-fashioned phrase, "the liberty of the press." It is another one of those matters lying so near the marge- land of what is mirthful and what is sad that a tilt of the mood may slip it into either. To the general, doubtless, it is a truth so obvious that it is never questioned, a be- quest from our forefathers that has paid no inheritance tax to time. In all the host of things insidiously un-American which have crept into our life, thank Heaven! say these unconscious Pharisees, the "press," if somewhat freakish, has remained free. So it is served up as a toast at ban- quets, garnished with florid rhetoric; it is still heard from old-fashioned pulpits; it cannot die, even though the con- ditions which made the phrase possible have passed away. The pooh-poohing of the elders, the scoffing of the ex- perienced, has little effect upon a boy's mind when it tries to do away with so palpable a truth as that concerning the inability of a chopped-up snake to die until sunset, or that matter-of-fact verity that devil's darning needles have little aim in life save to sew up the ears of youths and maidens. So with that glib old fantasy, "America's free and un trammeled press" : it needs a vast deal of argument to convince an older public that, as a matter to be accepted without a question, it has no right to exist. The condi- tioning clause was tacked on some years ago, doubtless when the old-time weekly began to expand into the modern small daily. The weekly was a periodic pamphlet; the 134 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR daily disdained its inheritance, and subordinated the ex- pression of opinion to the printing of those matters from which opinion is made. The cost of equipment of a daily newspaper, compared to the old-fashioned weekly, as a general thing makes necessary for the launching of such a venture a well-organized stock company, and in this lies much of the trouble. Confessions imply previous wrong-doing. Mine, while they are personal enough, are really more interesting be- cause of the vast number of others they incriminate. If two editors from lesser cities do not laugh in each other's faces, after the example of Cicero's augurs, it is because they are more modern, and choose to laugh behind each other's backs. So, in turning state's evidence, I feel less a coward than a reformer. What circumstance has led me to believe concerning the newspaper situation in a hundred and one small cities of this country is so startling in its unexplained brevity, that I scarce dare parade it as a prelude to my confessions. So much of my experience is predicated upon it that I do not dare save it for a peroration. Here it is, then, some- what more than half-truth, somewhat less than the truth itself: "A newspaper in a small city is not a legitimate business enterprise." That seems bold and bare enough to stamp me as sensational, does it not? Hear, then, the story of my Herald, knowing that it is the story of other Heralds. The Herald's story is mine, and my story, I dare say, is that of many others. To the facts, then. I speak with authority, being one of the scribes. I chose newspaper work in my native city, Pittsburg, mainly because I liked to write. I went into it after my CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 135 high-school days, spent a six months' apprenticeship on a well-known paper, left it for another, and in five years' hard work had risen from the reportorial ranks to that of a subordinate editorial writer a dubious rise. Hard work had not threshed out ambition: the few grains left sprouted. The death of an uncle and an unexpected legacy fructified my desire. I became zealous to preach crusades; to stamp my own individuality, my own ideals, upon the "people"; in short, to own and run a newspaper. It was a buxom fancy, a day-dream of many another like myself. A rapid rise had obtained for me the summit of reasonable expectation in the matter of salary; but I then thought, as indeed I do still, that the sum in one's envelope o' Mondays is no criterion of success. Personal ambition to "mould opinion," as the quaint untruth has it, as well as the com- mercial side of owning a newspaper, made me look about over a wide field, seeking a city which really needed a new newspaper. The work was to be in a chosen field, and to be one's own taskmaster is worth more than salary. As I prospected, I saw no possible end to the venture save that of every expectation fulfilled. I found a goodly town (of course I cannot name it) that was neither all future nor all past; a growing place, be- lieved in by capitalists and real-estate men. It was well railroaded, in the coal fields, near to waterways and to glory. It was developing itself and being developed by outside capital. It had a newspaper, a well-established affair, whose old equipment I laughed at. It needed a new one. My opening was found. The city would grow; I would grow up with it. The promise of six years ago has been in part fulfilled. I have no reason to regret my choosing the city I did. I went back to Pittsburg, consulted various of the great, obtained letters to prominent men high in the political 136 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR faith I intended to follow, went back to my town armed with the letters, and talked it over. They had been con- sidering the matter of a daily paper there to represent their faith and themselves, and after much dickering a company was formed. I found I could buy the weekly Herald, a nice property whose "good will" was worth having. Its owner was not over-anxious to sell, so drove a good bar- gain. As a weekly the paper for forty-three years had been gospel to many; I would make it daily gospel to more. In giving $5,500 for it I knew I was paying well, but it had a great name and a wide circulation. I saw no necessity of beginning on a small scale. People are not dazzled in this way. I wanted a press that folk would come in and see run, and as my rival had no lino- types, that was all the more reason why I should have two. Expensive equipments are necessary for newspapers when they intend to do great works and the public is eager to see what is going to happen. All this took money, more money than I had thought it would. But, talking the mat- ter over with my new friends and future associates, I con- vinced them that any economy was false economy at the start. But when I started I found that I owned but forty per cent of the Herald Publishing Company's stock. I was too big with the future to care. The sixty per cent was represented by various politicians. That was six years ago. It does not do in America, much less in the Atlantic, to be morosely pessimistic. At most one can be regretful. And yet why should I be regretful? You have seen me settle in my thriving city; see me now. I have my own home, a place of honor in the community, the company of the great. You see me married, with enough to live on, enough to entertain with, enough to afford a bit of travel now and then. I still "run" the Herald: it pays me my own salary (my stockholders have never interfered with CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 137 the business management of the paper), and were I insist- ent, I might have a consular position of importance, should the particular set of politicians I uphold (my "gang," as my rival the Bulletin says) revert to power. There is food in my larder, there are flowers in my garden. I carry enough insurance to enable my small family to do without me and laugh at starvation. I am but thirty-four years old. In short, I have a competence in a goodly little city. Why should I not rejoice with Stevenson that I have "some rags of honor left," and go about in middle age with my head high? Who of my schoolmates has done better? Is it nothing, then, to see hope dwindle and die away? My regret is not pecuniary: it is old-fashionedly moral. Where are those high ideals with which I set about this business? I dare not look them in their waxen faces. I have acquired immunity from starvation by selling under- handedly what I had no right to sell. Some may think me the better American. But P. T. Barnum's dictum about the innate love Americans have for a hoax is really a serious matter, when the truth is told. Mr. Barnum did not leave a name and a fortune because he befooled the public. If now and then he gave them Cardiff giants and white ele- phants, he also gave them a brave display in three crowded rings. I have dealt almost exclusively with the Cardiff giants. My regret is, then, a moral one. I bought something the nature of which did not dawn upon me until late; I felt environment adapt me to it little by little. The proc- ess was gradual, but I have not the excuse that it was un- conscious. There is the sting in the matter. I can scarcely plead ignorance. Somewhere in a scrapbook, even now beginning to yel- low, I have pasted, that it may not escape me (as if it could!), my first editorial announcing to the good world my 11 138 CONFESSIONS OP A PROVINCIAL EDITOR intent with the Herald. Let me quote from the mocking, double-leaded thing. I know the words. I know even now the high hope which gave them birth. I know how enchanting the vista was unfolding into the future. I can see how stern my boyish face was, how warm my blood. With a blare of trumpets I announced my mission. With a mustering day of the good old stock phrases used on such occasions I marshaled my metaphors. In making my bow, gravely and earnestly, I said, among other things : "Without fear or favor, serving only the public, the Herald will be at all times an intelligent medium of news and opinions for an intelligent community. Bowing the knee to no clique or faction, keeping in mind the great imperishable standards of American manhood, the noble traditions upon which the framework of our country is grounded, the Herald will champion, not the weak, not the strong, but the right. It will spare no expense in gath- ering news, and it will give all the news all of the time. It will so guide its course that only the higher interests of the city are served, and will be absolutely fearless. Inde- pendent in politics, it will freely criticise when occasion demands. By its adherence to these principles may it stand or fall." But why quote more? You have all read them, though I doubt if you have read one more sincere. I felt myself a force, the Herald the expression of a force; an entity, the servant of other forces. My paper was to be all that other papers were not. My imagination carried me to sublime heights. This was six years ago. ii Events put a check on my runaway ambition in forty- eight hours. The head of the biggest clothing house, and CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 139 the largest advertiser in the city, called on me. I received him magnificently in my new office, motioning him to take a chair. I can see him yet stout, prosperous, and to the point. As he talked, he toyed with a great seal that hung from a huge hawser-like watch-chain. "Say," said he, refusing my chair, "just keep out a little item you may get hold of to-day." His manner was the same with me as with a salesman in his "gents' " under- clothing department. "Concerning?" I asked pleasantly. " Oh, there 's a friend of mine got arrested to-day. Some farmer had him took in for fraud or something. He '11 make good, I guess; I know, in fact. He ain't a bad fellow, and it would hurt him if this got printed." I asked him for particulars; saw a reporter who had the story; learned that the man was a sharp-dealer with a bad reputation, who had been detected in an attempt to cheat a poor farmer out of $260 a bare-faced fraud indeed. I learned that the man had long been suspected by public opinion of semi-legal attempts to rob the "wid- ow and the orphan," and that at last there was a chance of "showing him up." I went back with a bold face. " I find, though the case has not been tried, that the man is undoubtedly guilty." "Guilty?" said my advertiser. "What of that? He'll settle." "That hardly lessens the guilt." I smiled. The clothing man looked astounded. " But if you print that he'll be ruined," he sputtered. "From all I can learn, so much the better," I answered. Then my man swore. "See here," he said, when he got back to written language. "He's just making his living; you ain't got no right to stop a man's earning his living. 140 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR It ain't none of any newspaper's business. Just a private affair between him and the farmer, and he'll settle." "I don't see how," I put in somewhat warmly, "it is n't the business of a newspaper to tell its public of a dangerous man, arrested for fraud, caught in his own net so badly that he is willing to settle, as you claim. It is my obvious duty to my constituents to print such a case. From the news point of view I was going on smoothly, but he stepped up and shook his fist in my face. "Constituents? Ain't I a constituent? Don't I pay your newspaper for more advertising than any one else? Ain't I your biggest constituent? Say, young man, you 're too big for this town. Don't try to bully me ! " he suddenly screamed. "Don't you dare bully me! Don't you dare try it. I see what you want. You're trying to blackmail me, you are ; you 're trying to work me for more advertis- ing; you want money out of me. That game don't go; not with me it don't. I'll have you arrested." And he talked as though he believed it! Then he said he 'd never pay me another cent, might all manner of things happen to his soul if he did. He'd go to the Bulletin, and double his space. The man was his friend, and he had asked but a reasonable request, and I had tried to blackmail him. He worked that blackmail in every other sentence. Then he strode out, slamming the door. The "little item" was not printed in the Herald (nor in the Bulletin, more used to such requests), and, as he had said, he was my biggest advertiser. It was my first experi- ence with the advertiser with a request: for this reason I have given the incident fully. It recurred every week. I grew to think little of it soon. "Think of how his children will feel," say the friends of some one temporarily lodged in the police station. " Think of what the children of some one this man will swindle next will say," is what I might CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 141 answer. But I don't, not if an advertiser requests other- wise. As I have grown to phrase the matter, a newspaper is a contrivance which meets its pay-roll by selling space to advertisers : render it therefore agreeable to those who make its existence possible. Less jesuitically it may be put the ultimate editor of a small newspaper is the advertiser, the biggest advertiser is the politician. This is a maxim that experience has ground with its heel into the fabric of my soul. We all remember Emerson's brilliantly un-New-England advice, " Hitch your wagon to a star." This saying is of no value to newspapers, for they find stars poor motive power. Theoretically, it must be granted that newspapers, of all business ventures, should properly be hitched to a star. Yet I have found that, if any hitching is to be done, it must be to the successful politician. Amending Mr. Emerson, I have found it the best rule to "yoke your newspaper to the politician in power." This, then, is what a small newspaper does: sells its space to the advertiser, its policy to the politician. It is smooth sailing save when these two forces conflict, and then Scylla and Charybdis were joys to the heart. Let us look into the advertiser part of the business a bit more closely. The advertiser seeks the large circulation. The biggest advertiser seeks the cheapest people. Thus is a small newspaper (the shoe will pinch the feet of the great as well) forced, in order to survive, to pander to the Most Low. The man of culture does not buy $4.99 overcoats, the woman of culture 27-cent slippers. The newspaper must see that it reaches those who do. This is one of the saddest matters in the whole business. The Herald started with a circulation slightly over 2,000. I found that my town was near enough to two big cities for the papers published there 142 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR to enter my field. I could not hope to rival their tele- graphic features, and I soon saw that, if the Herald was to succeed, it must .pay strict attention to local news. My rival stole its telegraphic news bodily; I paid for a service. The people seemed to care little for attempted assassina- tions of the Shah, but they were intensely interested in pinochle parties in the seventh ward. I gave them pino- chle parties. Still my circulation diminished. My rival regained all that I had taken from him at the start. I wondered why, and compared the papers. I "set" more matter than he. The great difference was that my head- lines were smaller and my editorial page larger than his. Besides, his tone was much lower: he printed rumor, made news to deny it did a thousand and one things that kept his paper "breezy." I put in bigger headlines outdid him, in fact. I al- most abolished my editorial page, making of it an attempt to amuse, not to instruct. I printed every little person- ality, every rumor that my staff could get hold of in their tours. The result came slowly, but surely. Success came when I exaggerated every little petty scandal, every row in a church choir, every hint of a disturbance. I compro- mised four libel suits, and ran my circulation up to 3,200 in eleven months. Then I formed some more conclusions. I evolved a news- paper law out of the matter and the experience of some brothers in the craft in small cities near by. Briefly, I stated it in this wise: The worse a paper is, the more influ- ence it has. To gain influence, be wholly bad. This is no paradox, nor does it reflect particularly upon the public. There is reason for it in plenty. Take the ably edited paper, which glories in its editorial page, in the clean exposition of an honest policy, in high ideas put in good English, and you will find a paper which has a small CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 143 clientele in a provincial town ; or, if it has readers, it will have small influence. Say that it strikes the reader at breakfast, and the person who has leisure to breakfast is the person who has time for editorials, and the expression of that paper's opinion is carefully read. Should these opinions square with the preconceived ideas of the reader, the editorials are "great"; if not, they are "rotten." In other words, the man who reads carefully written edito- rials is the man whose opinion is formed the man of culture, and therefore of prejudice. Doubtless he is as well acquainted with conditions as the writer; perhaps bet- ter acquainted. When a man does have opinions in a small city, he is quite likely to have strong ones. A flitting editorial is not the thing to change them. On the other hand, the man who has little time to read editorials, or perhaps little inclination, is just the man who might be influenced by them if read. Hence well-written editorials on a small daily are wasted thunder in great part, an un- economic expenditure of force. When local politics are at fever-heat, a different aspect of affairs is often seen : editorials are generally read, not so much as expressions of opinion, but as party attack and defense. During periods of political quiet the aim of most editorial pages is to amuse or divert. The advertiser has noted the decadence of the editorial page, and as a general thing makes a violent protest if the crying of his wares is made to emanate from this poor, despised portion of the paper. An advertisement on a local page is worth much more, and he pays more for the privilege. So I learned another lesson. I shifted, as my successful contemporaries have done, my centre of editorial gravity from its former high position to my first and local pages. I now editorialize by suggestion. News now carries its own moral, the bias I wish it to show. This requires no 144 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR less skill than the writing of editorials, and, greatly as I deplore it, I find the results- pleasing. Does the Herald wish to denounce a public official? Into a dozen articles is the venom inserted. Slyly, subtly, and ofttimes openly do news articles point the obvious moral. The "Acqua Tofana" of journalism is ready to be used when occasion demands, and this is very often. Innuendo is common, the stiletto is inserted quietly and without warning, and tac- tics a man would shun may be used by a newspaper with little or no adverse comment. I mastered the philosophy of the indirect. I gained my ends by carefully coloring my news to the ends and policies of the paper. Nor am I altogether to blame. My paper was supposed to have in- fluence. When I wrote careful and patient editorials, it had none. I saw that the public mind must be enfiladed, ambushed, and I adopted those primary American tactics of Indian warfare: shot from behind tree trunks, spared not the slain, and from the covert of a news item sent out screeching savages upon the unsuspecting public. Edi- torial warfare as conducted fifty years ago is obsolete; its methods are as antiquated to-day as is the artillery of that age. in I have called the Herald my own at different times in this article. I conceived it, established it, built it up. It stands to-day as the result of my work. True, my money was not the only capital it required, but mine was the hand that reared it. I found, to my great chagrin, that few people in the city considered me other than a hired servant of the political organization that aided in establishing the Herald. It was an "organ," a something which stood to the world as the official utterance of this political set. "Organs," in newspaper parlance, properly have but one CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 145 function. Mine was evidently to explain or attack, as the case might be. To the politicians who helped start the Herald the paper was a political asset. It could on occa- sion be a club or a lever, as the situation demanded. I had been led to expect no personal intrusion. "Just keep straight with the party ' ' was all that was asked. But never was constancy so unfaltering as that expected of the Herald. It must not print this because it was true; it must print that because it was untrue. I had been six months in the city, when I overheard a conversation in a street car. "Oh, I'll fix the Herald all right. I know Johnny X," said one man. That was nice of Johnny X's friend, I thought. The Bulletin accused me of not daring to print certain matters. I was ashamed, humiliated. Between the friends of Johnny X and the friends of others, I saw myself in my true light. Johnny X, by the way, a noisy ward politician, owned just one share in the Herald; but that gave his friends the right to ask him to "fix" it, nevertheless. I consulted with a wise man, a real leader, a man of ex- perience and a warm heart. He heard me and laughed, patting me on the shoulder to humor me. "You want that printing, don't you?" he asked. I admitted that I did. I had counted on it. "Then," said my adviser, "I wouldn't offend Johnny X, if I were you. He controls the supervisor in his ward." I began to see a great light, and I have needed no other illumination since. This matter of public printing had been promised me. I knew it was necessary. I saw that, inasmuch as it was given out by the lowest politicians in the town, I escaped easily if I paid as my price the indul- gence of the various Johnnies X who had "influence." I was the paid supernumerary of the party, yet had to bear its mistakes and follies, its weak men and their weaker 146 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR friends, upon my poor editorial back. I realized it from that moment; I should have seen it before. But for all that, my cheeks burned for days, and my teeth set when- ever I faced the thought. I don't mind it in the least now. So at the end of a year and a half I saw a few more things. I saw that by being a good boy and adaptable to "fixing" I could earn thirty-five dollars a week with less work than I could earn forty-five dollars in a big city. I saw that the Herald as a business proposition was a failure; that is, it was not, even under the most advantageous conditions, the money-maker that I at first thought it to be. I saw that if the city grew, and if there were no more rivals, if there were a hundred advantageous conditions, it might make several thousand dollars a year, besides paying me a bigger salary. I was very much disheartened. Then there came a turn. I saw the business part of the proposition very clearly. I must play in with my owners, the party; and in turn my owners would support me nearly as well when they were out of power as they could when ruling. Revenue came from the city, the county, the state, all at " legal' ' rates. I began to see why these "legal" rates were high, some five times higher than those of ordinary advertising for such a paper as the Herald. The state, when paying its advertising bill, must pay the Herald five times the rate any clothing advertiser could get. The reason is not diffi- cult to see. All over the state and country there are papers just like the Herald, controlled by little cliques of politi- cians, who, too miserly to support the necessary losses, make the people pay for them. Any attempt to lower the legal rate in any state legislature would call up innumerable champions of the "press," gentlemen all interested in their newspapers at home. The people pay more than a cent for their penny papers. It is the tax-payer who supports CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 147 a thousand and one unnecessary "organs." The politi- cians are wise, after all. So I got my perspective. I was paid to play the political game of others. I had to play it supported by indirect bribes. As a straight business proposition, that is, without any state or city advertising, tax sales, printing of the proceedings, and the like, the Herald could not live out a year. But by refusing to say many things, and by saying many more, I could get such share of these matters as would support the paper. In my second year, near its close, I saw that I was really a property, a chattel, a something bought and sold. I was being trafficked with to my loss. My friends bought me with public printing, and sold me for their own ends. I saw that they had the best of the bargain. I could do better without the middlemen. I determined to make my own bargain with the devil for my own soul. It was a brilliant thought, but a bitter one. I determined to be a Sir John Hawkwood, and sell my editorial mer- cenaries to the highest bidder. Only the weak are gregari- ous, I thought with Nietzsche. If I could not put a name upon my actions, at least I could put a price. I made a loan, grabbed up some Herald stock cheaply, and owned at last over fifty per cent of my own paper. Now, I thought, I will at least make money. I knew at just that time, that my own party, joined with the enemy, was much interested in a contract the city was about to make with a lighting company, a long- term contract at an exorbitant price. No opposition was expected. The city council had been "seen," the reform- ers silenced. I knew some of the particulars. I knew that both parties were gaining at the public expense, to their own profit and the tremendous profit of the gas com- pany. I, fearless in my new control, sent out a small 148 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR editorial feeler, a little suggestion about municipal own- ership. This time my editorial did have influence. No mango tree of an Indian juggler blossomed quicker. I was called upon one hour after the paper was out. What in the name of all unnamable did I mean? I laughed. I pointed out the new holdings of stock I had acquired. What did the gentlemen mean? They didn't know not then. I had a very pleasant call from the gas company's at- torney the next day. He was a most agreeable fellow, a man of parts, assuredly. I, a conscious chattel, would now appraise myself. I waited, letting the pleasantry flow by in a gentle stream. By the way, suggested my new friend, why did n't I try for the printing of the gas company? It was quite a matter. My friend was surprised that the Herald had so complete a job-printing plant. The gas company had all of its work done out of town, at a high rate, he thought. He would use his influence, etc., etc. Actually, I felt very important! All this to come out of a little editorial on municipal ownership ! The Herald did n't care for printing so very much, I said. But I would think it over. The next day I followed up my municipal ownership edi- torial. It was my answer. I waited for theirs. I waited in vain. I had overreached myself. This was humiliation indeed, and it aroused every bit of ire and revenge in me. I boldly launched out on a campaign against the dragon. I would see if the "press" could be held so cheaply. I printed statistics of the price of lighting in other cities. I exposed the whole scheme. I stood for the people at last! My early fire came back. We would see: the people and the Herald against a throttling corporation and a gang of corrupt aldermen. Then the other side got into the war. I went to the bank CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR 149 to renew a note. I had renewed it a dozen times before. But the bank had seen the Gorgon and turned to stone. I digged deep and met the note. A big law firm which had given me all its business began to seek out the Bulletin. One or two advertisers dropped out. Some unseen hand began to foment a strike. Were the banks, the bar, and, worst of all, the labor unions, in the pay of a gas company? It was exhilarating to be with "the people," but exhilara- tion does not meet pay-rolls. I may state that I am now doing the gas company's printing at a very fair rate. I saw that the policy was a good one, nevertheless. I also saw that it could not be carried to the extreme. So I have become merely threatening. I have learned never to overstep my bounds. I take my lean years and my fat years, still a hireling, but having somewhat to say about my market value. What provincial paper does not have the same story to tell? My public does n't care for good writing. It has no regard for reason. During one political campaign I tried reason. That is, I did n't denounce the adversary. Ad- mitting he had some very good points, I showed why the other man had better ones. The general impression was that the Herald had "flopped," just because I did not abuse my party's opponent, but tried to defeat him with logic! A paper is always admired for its backbone, and backbone is its refusal to see two sides to a question. I have reached the "masses." I tell people what they knew beforehand, and thus flatter them. Aiming to in- struct them, I should offend. God is with the biggest cir- culations, and we must have them, even if we appeal to class prejudice now and then. I can occasionally foster a good work, almost under- handedly, it would seem. I take little pleasure in it. The various churches, hospitals, the library, all expect to be 150 CONFESSIONS OF A PROVINCIAL EDITOR coddled indiscriminately and without returning any thanks whatever. I formerly had as much railroad transporta- tion as I wished. I still have the magazines free of charge and a seat in the theatre. These are my "perquisites." There is no particular future for me. The worst of it is that I don't seem to care. The gradual falling away from the high estate of my first editorial is a matter for the student of character, which I am not. In myself, as in my paper, I see only results. I think these confessions are ample enough and blunt enough. When I left the high school, I would have wished to word them in Stevensonian manner. That was some time ago. We who run small dailies have little care for the niceties of style. There are few of our clientele who know the nice from the not-nice. In our smaller cities we "sui- cide" and "jeopardize." We are visited by "agricultural- ists," and "none of us are" exempt from little iniquities and uniquities of style and expression. We go right on: "commence" where we should "begin," use "balance" for "remainder," never think of putting the article before "Hon." and "Rev.," and some of us abbreviate "assem- blyman" into "ass," meaning nothing but condensation. Events still "transpire" in our small cities, and inevitably we "try experiments." We have learned to write "trou- sers," and "gents" appears only in our advertisements. In common with the very biggest and best papers we al- ways say "leniency." That I do these things, the last co- ercion of environment, is the saddest, to me, of all. THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY BY CHAKLES MOREAU HARGER EULOGIES and laudatory paragraphs, alternating with sneers, ridicule, and deprecations, long have been the lot of the country editor. Pictured in the comic papers as an egotistic clown, exalted by the politicians as a mighty "moulder of public opinion," occasionally chastised by angry patrons, and sometimes remembered by delighted subscribers, he has put his errors where they could be read of all men and has modestly sought a fair credit for his merits. At times he has rebelled not at treatment from his constituency but at patronizing remarks of the city jour- nalist who sits at a mahogany desk and dictates able articles for the eighteen-page daily, instead of writing local items at a pine table in the office of a four-page weekly. Thus did one voice his protest: "When you consider that the country weekly is owned by its editor and that the man who writes the funny things about country papers in the city journals is owned by the corporation for which he writes, it does n't seem so sad. When you see an item in the city papers poking fun at the country editor for print- ing news about John Jones' new barn, you laugh and laugh for you know that on one of the pages of that same city daily is a two-column story in regard to the trimmings on the gowns of the Duchess of Wheelbarrow. And it is all the more amusing because you know the duch- ess does not even know of the existence of the aforesaid city paper, while John Jones and many of his neighbors 15 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY take and pay for the paper which mentioned his new barn. Don't waste your pity on the country newspaper worker. He will get along." Little money is needed to start a country paper. There are those who claim that it does not require any money, that it can be done on nerve alone, and they produce evidence to support the statement. True, some of the editors who have the least money and the poorest plants are most successful in their efforts to live up to the con- ception developed by the professional humorist; but it is not fair to judge the country editor by these any more than it would be fair to judge the workers on the great city dailies by the publishers of back-street fake sheets that exist merely to rob advertisers; or to judge the editors of reputable magazines by the promoters of nauseous month- lies whose stock in trade is a weird and sickening collection of mail-order bargains and quack medicine advertisements. The country editor of to-day is far removed from his prototype of two or three decades ago. It would be strange if an age that gives to the farmer his improved self-binder, to the physician his X-ray machine, and to the merchant his loose-leaf ledger, had done nothing for the town's best medium of publicity. The perfection of stereotype plate manufacture by which a page of telegraph news may be delivered ready for printing at a cost of approximately twenty cents a column, and the elaboration of the "ready print," or "patent inside," by which half the paper is printed before delivery, yet at practically no expense over the unprinted sheets, have been the two great labor-savers for the country editor. Thereby he is relieved, if he desire, of the tedious and expensive task of setting much type in order to give the world's general news, and the miscella- neous matter that "fills up" the paper. His energies then may be devoted to reporting the happenings of his locality THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 153 and to giving his opinions on public affairs. By his doing of these, and by his relations toward the public interests, is he to be judged. After all, no one man in the community has so large an opportunity to assist the town in advancement as the editor. It is not because he is smarter than others, not because he is wealthy but because he is the spokesman to the outside world. He is eager to print all the news in his own paper. Does he do it? Hardly. "This would be a very newsy paper," explained a frank country editor to his subscribers, "were it not for the fact that each of the four men who work on it has many friends. By the time all the items that might injure some of their friends are omitted, very little is left." "I wish you would print a piece about our school- teacher," said a farmer's wife to me one afternoon. "Say that she is the best teacher in the county." "But I can't do that two hundred other teachers would be angry. You write the piece, sign it, and I'll print it." "What are you running a newspaper for if you can't please your subscribers?" she demanded and canceled her subscription. So the country editor leaves out certain good things and certain bad things for the very simple reason that the per- sons most interested are close at hand and can find the individual responsible for the statements. He becomes wise in his generation and avoids chastisements and libel suits. He finds that there is no lasting regard in a sneer, no satisfaction in gratifying the impulse to say things that bring tears to women's eyes, nothing to gloat over in open- ing a wound in a man's heart. If he does not learn this as he grows older in the service, he is a poor country editor. His relations to his subscribers are intimate. There is 12 154 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY little mystery possible about the making of the paper; it is as if he stood in the market-place and told his story. Of course, the demands upon him are many and some of them preposterous. Men with grafts seek to use the paper, people with schemes ask free publicity. The country edi- tor is criticised for charging for certain items that no city paper prints free. The churches and lodges want free notices of entertainments by which they hope to make money; semi-public entertainments prepared under the management of a traveling promoter ask free advertising " for the good of the cause." Usually they get it, and when the promoter passes on, the editor is found to be the only one in town who received nothing for his labor. It is characteristic of the country town to engage in community quarrels. These absorb the attention of the citizens, and feeling becomes bitter. The cause may be trifling: the location of a schoolhouse, the building of a bridge, the selection of a justice of the peace, or some similar matter, is enough. To the newspaper office hurry the partisans, asking for ex parte reports of the conditions. One leader is, perhaps, a liberal advertiser; to offend him means loss of business. Another is a personal friend; to anger him means the loss of friendship. The editor of the only paper in the town must be a diplomat if he is to guide safely through the channel. In former times he tried to please both sides and succeeded in making enemies of every one interested. Now the well-equipped editor takes the position that he is a business man like the others, that he has rights as do they, and he states the facts as he sees them, regardless of partisanship, letting the public do the rest. If there be another paper in town, the problem is easy, for the other faction also has an "organ." Out of the public's disagreement may come a newspaper quarrel though this is a much rarer thing than formerly. THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 155 The old-time country newspaper abuse of "our loathed but esteemed contemporary" is passing away, it being under- stood that such a quarrel, with personalities entangled in the recriminations, is both undignified and ungentlemanly. "But people will read it," says the man who by gossip encourages these attacks. So will people listen to a coarse street controversy carried on in a loud and angry tone, but little is their respect for the principals engaged. Coun- try editors of the better class now treat other editors as gentlemen, and the paper that stoops to personal attacks is seldom found. Many a town has gone for years without other than kindly mention in any paper of the editors of the other papers, and in such towns you will generally find peace and courtesy among the citizens. Of course, there are politics and political arguments, but few are the editors so lacking in the instincts of a gentle- man as to bring into these the opposing editor's personal and family affairs. It has come to be understood that such action is a reflection on the one who does it, not on the object of his attack. This is another way of saying that more real gentlemen are running country newspapers to- day than ever before. This broadening of character has broadened influence. The country paper is effecting greater things in legislation than the county conven- tions are. "The power of the country press in Washington sur- prises me," said a Middle West congressman last winter. "During my two terms I have been impressed with it con- stantly. I doubt if there is a single calm utterance in any paper in the United States that does not carry some weight in Washington among the members of Congress. You might think that what some little country editor says does not amount to anything, but it means a great deal more than most people realize. When the country editor, who 156 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY is looking after nothing but the county printing, gives ex- pression to some rational idea about a national question, the man off here in Congress knows that it comes from the grass-roots. The lobby, the big railroad lawyers, and that class of people, realize the power of the press, but they hate it. I have heard them talk about it and shake their heads and say, * Too much power there ! ' The press is more pow- erful than money." This was not said in flattery, but because he had seen on congressmen's desks the heaps of country weeklies, and he knew how closely they were read. The smallest edi- torial paragraph tells the politician of the condition in that paper's community, for he knows that it is put there be- cause the editor has gathered the idea from some one whom he trusts as a leader and the politician knows approxi- mately who that leader is. So the country editor often exerts a power of which he knows little. ii But politics is only a part of the country editor's life. The social affairs of the community are nearest to him. The proud father who brings in a cigar with a notice of the seventh baby's arrival (why cigars and babies should be associated in men's minds I never understood), the fruit farmer who presents some fine Ben Davis apples in the expectation that he will get a notice, are but types. The editor may have some doubts concerning the need of a seventh child in the family of the proud father, and he may not be particularly fond of Ben Davis apples; but he gives generous notices because he knows that the gifts were prompted by kind hearts and that the givers are his friends. When joy comes to the household, it is but the working THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 157 of the heart's best impulses to desire that all should share it. The news that the princess of the family has, after many years of waiting, wedded a prosperous merchant of the neighboring county, brings the family into prominence in the home paper. Seldom in these busy times does the editor get a piece of wedding-cake, but nevertheless he fails not to say that the bride is "one of our loveliest young ladies and the groom is worthy of the prize he has won." The city paper does not do that. Here and there a country editor tries to put on city airs and give the bare facts of "social functions," without a personal touch to the lines. But infrequently does he succeed in reaching the hearts of his readers, and somehow he finds that his contemporary across the street, badly printed, sprinkled with typographi- cal errors and halting in its grammar, but profuse in its laudations, is getting an unusual number of new sub- scribers. Even you, though you may pretend to be un- mindful, are not displeased when on the day after your party you read that the guests "went home feeling that a good time had been had." The time has not yet come for the country paper to assume city airs; nor is it likely to arrive for many years. The reason is a psychological one. The city journal is the paper of the masses; the country weekly or small daily is the paper of the neighborhood. One is general and imper- sonal; the other, direct and intimate. One is the market- place; the other, the home. The distinction is not soon to be wiped out. And when sorrow comes ! Into the home of a city friend of mine death entered, taking the wife and mother. The family had been prominent in social circles, and columns were printed in the city papers, columns of cold, biograph- ical facts born, married, died. But the news went back to the small country town where in their early married life 158 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY the husband and wife had spent many happy years, and in the little country weekly was quite another sort of story. It told how much her friends loved her, how saddened they were by her passing away, how sweet and womanly had been her character. The husband did not send the city papers to distant acquaintances; he sent copy after copy of the little country weekly, the only place where, despite his prominence in the world, appeared a sympathetic rela- tion of the loss that had come to him. Week after week the country paper does this. From issue after issue clippings are stowed away in bureau drawers or pasted in family Bibles, because they picture the loved one gone. It may not be a very high mission; but no part of the country editor's work has in it more of satisfaction and recompense. After the funeral comes the real test of the editor's good- nature. Long resolutions adopted by lodges and church organizations are handed in for publication, each bristling with the forms of ritual or creed, and each signed with the names of the committee members upon whom devolved the task of composition. A few country editors are brave enough to demand payment at advertising rates for these publications; generally they are printed without charge. Nor is there a halt at this step in the proceeding. One day a sad-faced farmer, with a heavy band of crape around his battered soft hat, accompanied by a woman whose heavy veil and black dress are sufficient insignia of woe, comes to the office. "We would like to put in a 'card of thanks/ " begins the man, " and we wish you would write it for us. We ain't very good at writing pieces, and you know how." Does the editor tell them how bad is the taste that in- dulges the stereotyped card of thanks? Does he haughtily refuse to be a party to such violation of form's canons? THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 159 Scarcely. He knows the formula by heart and "the kind friends and neighbors who assisted us in our late bereave- ment" comes to him as easily as the opening words of a mayor's proclamation. Occasionally there is literary talent in the family, and the "card" is prepared without the editor's assistance. Here is one verbatim as it came to the desk: "We extend our thanks to the good people who assisted us in the sickness and death of our wife and daughter : The doctor who was so faithful in attendance and effort to bring her back to health, the pastor who visited and prayed with her and us, the students who watched with us and waited on her, the neighbors who did all they could in helping care for her, the dormitory students, the faculty, the literary societies and the A.O.U.W. who furnished such beautiful flowers, we thank them all. Then the undertaker who was so kind, the liveryman and other friends who furnished carriages for us to go to the cemetery yes, we thank you all." Doubtless he feels that he should do something toward conserving the best taste in social usage, and that the "card of thanks" should be ruthlessly frowned down; but he sees also the other side. It is unquestionably prompted by a spirit of sincere gratitude, and survives as a concession to a supposed public opinion. Like other things that are self -perpetuating, this continues and the country editor out of the goodness of his heart assists in its longevity. In no path is the progress of the reformer so difficult as in that of social custom; and this is as true on the village street as on the city boulevard. in The past half-decade has brought to the country editor a new problem and a new rival, the rural delivery route. 160 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY Until this innovation came, few farmers took daily papers. The country weekly, or the weekly from the city, furnished the news. Out in the Middle West the other morning, a dozen miles from town, a farmer rode on a sulky plough turning over brown furrows for the new crop. "I see by to-day's Kan- sas City papers," he began, as a visitor came alongside, "that there is trouble in Russia again." "What do you know about what is in to-day's Kansas City papers?" "Oh, we got them from the carrier an hour ago." It was not yet noon, but he was in touch with the world's news up to one o'clock that morning and this twelve miles from a railroad and two hundred miles west of the Missouri River ! In that county every farmhouse has rural delivery of mail; and one carrier makes his round in an automobile, covering the thirty miles in four hours or less. The country editor has viewed with alarm this changing condition. He has feared that he would be robbed of his subscribers through the familiar excuse, "I'm takin' more papers than I can read." But nothing of the kind has happened. Although the rural carriers take each morning great packages of daily papers, brought to the village by the fast mail, the people along the routes are as eager as ever for the weekly visit of the home paper. If by accident one copy is missing from the carrier's supply on Thurs- day, great is the lamentation. It is doubtful if a single country paper has been injured by the rural route; in most instances the reading habit has been so stimulated as to increase the patronage. This it has done : it has impressed on the editor the ne- cessity of giving much attention to home news and less to the happenings afar. This is, indeed, the province of the country paper, since it is of the home and the family, not of the market-place. This feature will grow, and the coun- THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 161 try paper will become more a chronicle of home news and less a purveyor of outside happenings, for soon practically every farmer will have his daily paper with the regularity of the sunrise. On the whole, instead of being an injury this is helpful to the rural publisher; it relieves him of responsibility for a broad field of information and allows him to devote his energy to that news which gives the greatest hold on readers, the doings of the immediate community. With this will come more generally the print- ing of the entire paper at home and the decline of the "patent inside," now so common, which has served its pur- pose well. If it exist, it will be in a modified form, devoted chiefly to readable articles of a literary rather than of a news value. The city daily may give the telegraph news of the world in quicker and better service, the mail-order house may occasionally undersell the home merchant, the glory of the city's lights may dazzle; but, at the end of the week, home and home institutions are best; so only one publication gives the news we most wish to know, the country paper. The city business man throws away his financial journal and his yellow "extra," and tears open the pencil- addressed home paper that brings to him memories of new- mown hay and fallow fields and boyhood. Regardless of its style, its grammar, or its politics, it holds its reader with a grip that the city editor may well envy. In these times the country editor is, like the publisher of the city, a business man. Scores of offices of country weeklies within two hundred miles of the Rockies (which is about as far inland as we can get nowadays) have lino- types or type-setting machines, run the presses with an electric motor, and give the editor an income of three thousand dollars or more a year for labor that allows many a vacation day. The country editor gets a good deal out 162 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY of life. He lives well; he travels much; he meets the best people of his state; and, if he be inclined, he can accom- plish much for his own improvement. Added to this is the joy of rewarding the honorable, decent people of the town with good words and helpful publicity, and the satisfac- tion of seeing that the rascals get their dues, and get them they do if the editor lives and the rascals live, for in the country town the editor's turn always comes. It may be long delayed, but it arrives. If he use his power with honesty and intelligence, he can do much good for the community. In the opinion of some this danger threatens: the in- creased rapidity of transportation, the multitude of fast trains, and the facilities for placing the big city papers within a zone of one hundred miles of the office of publica- tion, mean the large representation of particular localities, or even the establishment of editions devoted to them. The city paper tries to absorb the local patronage through the competent correspondent who practically edits certain columns or pages of the journal. In the thickly settled East this is more successful than in the West, where dis- tance helps the local paper. But the zone is widening with every improvement in transportation of mails, and soon few sections of the country will be outside the possibilities of some city paper's enterprise in this direction. When this happens, will the local weekly go out of exist- ence and its subscribers be attached to the big city paper whose facilities for getting news and whose enterprise in reaching the uttermost parts of the world far outstrip the slow-going weekly's best efforts? It is not likely. The county-seat weekly to-day, with its energetic correspond- ent in the town of Centreville, adds to its list in that section because it gives the news fully and crisply; but it does not drive out of business the Centreville Palladium, whose THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 163 editor has a personal acquaintance with every subscriber and who caters to the home pride of the community. It is probable that the Palladium will be more enterprising and will devote more attention to the doings of the dwellers in Centreville in order to keep abreast with the competition; but it cannot be driven out, nor its editor forced from his position by dearth of business. The life of a forceful paper is long. One such paper was sold and its name changed eighteen years ago; yet letters and subscriptions still are addressed to the old publication. A hold like that on a community's life cannot be broken by competition. IV The evolution of the country weekly into the country daily is becoming easier as telephone and telegraph become cheaper, and transportation enables publishers to secure at remote points a daily "plate" service that includes tele- graph news up to a few hours of the time of publication. The publishing of an Associated Press daily, which twenty years ago always attended a town's boom and generally resulted in the suspension of a bank or two and the finan- cial ruin of several families, has become simplified until it is within reach of modest means. Instead of the big city journals extending their sway to crush out the country paper, it is more probable that the country papers will take on some of the city's airs, and that, with the added touch of personal familiarity with the people and their affairs, the country editor will become a greater power than in the past. For it is recognized to-day that the publication of a paper is a business affair and not a matter of faith or revenge. If the publication be not a financial success, it is not much of a success of any kind. The old-time editor who prided himself on his powers of 164 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY vituperation, who thundered through double-leaded col- umns his views on matters of world-importance and traded space for groceries and dry goods, has few representatives to-day. The wide-awake, clean-cut, well-dressed young men, paying cash for their purchases and demanding cash for advertising, alert to the business and political move- ments that make for progress, and taking active part in the interests of the town, precisely as though they were merchants or mechanics, asking no favors because of their occupation, are taking their places. This sort of country editor is transforming the country paper and is making of it a business enterprise in the best sense of the term, something it seldom was under the old regime. This eulogy is one often quoted by the country press: "Every year every local paper gives from five hundred to five thousand lines for the benefit of the community in which it is located. No other agency can or will do this. The editor, in proportion to his means, does more for his town than any other man. To-day editors do more work for less pay than any men on earth." Like other eulogies it has in it something of exaggera- tion. It assumes the country editor to be a philanthropist above his neighbors. The new type of country editor makes no such claim. To be sure, he prints many good things for the community's benefit, but he does it be- cause he is a part of the community. What helps the town helps him. His neighbor, the miller, would do as much; his other neighbor, the hardware man, is as loyal and in his way works as hard for the town's upbuilding. In other words, the country editor of to-day assumes no particular virtue because his capital is invested in printing-presses, paper, and a few thousand pieces of metal called type. He does realize that because of his avocation he is enabled to do much for good government, for progress, and for the THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY 165 betterment of his community. Unselfishly and freely he does this. He starts movements that bring scoundrels to terms, that place flowers where weeds grew before, that banish sorrow and add to the world's store of joy; but he does not presume that because of this he deserves more credit than his fellow business men. He is indeed fallen from grace who makes a merit of doing what is decent and honest and fair. It is often remarked that the ambition of the country editor is to secure a position on a city paper. I have had many city newspapermen confide to me that their fondest hope was to save enough money to buy a country weekly in a thriving town. At first thought it would seem that the city journalist would fail in the new field, having been educated in a vastly different atmosphere and being unac- quainted with the conditions under which the country editor must make friends and secure business. But two of the most successful newspapers of my acquaintance are edited by men who served their apprenticeship on city dailies, and finally realized their heart's desire and bought country weeklies in prosperous communities. They are not only making more money than ever before, but both tell me that they have greater happiness than came in the old days of rush, hurry, and excitement. So long as a country paper can be issued without the expenditure of more than a few hundred dollars, so long as the man with ambition and money can satisfy his desire to "edit," the country paper will be fruitful of jocose remarks by the city journalist. There will be columns of odd reprint from the backwoods of Arkansas, and queer combinations of grammar and egotism from the Egypt of Illinois. The exchange editor will find in his rural mail much food for humorous comment, but he will not find characterizing the country editor a lack of independence, 166 THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY or a lack of ability to look out for himself. The country editor is doing very well, and the trend of his business affairs is in the direction of better financial returns and wider influence. He is a greater power now than ever before in his history, and he will become more influential as the years go by. He will not be controlled by a syndi- cate, or modeled after a machine-made pattern, but will exert his individuality wherever he may be. The country editor of to-day is coming into his own. He asks fewer favors and brings more into the store of common good. He does not ask eulogies nor does he resent fair criticisms; he is content to be judged by what he is and what he has accomplished. As the leader of the hosts must hold his place by the consent of his followers, so must the town's spokesman prove his worth. Closest to the people, nearest to their home life, its hopes and its aspira- tions, the country editor is at the foundation of journalism. Here and there is a weak and inefficient example; but in the main he measures up to as high a standard as does any class of business men in the nation, and it is as a busi- ness man that he prefers to be classed. SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW BY GEORGE W. ALGER So much has been said in recent years concerning the methods and policies of sensational journalism that a fur- ther word upon a topic so hackneyed would seem almost to require an explanation or an apology. Current criticism, however, for the most part, has been confined to only one of its many characteristics, its bad taste and its vulgar- izing influence on its readers by daily offenses against the actual, though as yet ideal, right of privacy, by its arrogant boastfulness, mawkish sentimentality, and a persistent and systematic distortion of values in events. This, the most noticeable feature of yellow journalism, is indicative rather of its character than of its purpose. In considering, however, the present subject, sensational journalism in its relation to the making, enforcing, and interpreting of law, we enter a different field, that of the conscious policies and objects with and for which these papers are conducted. The main business of a newspaper as defined by journalists of the old school is the collection and publication of news of general interest coupled with editorial comment upon it. The old-time editor was a ruminative and critical observer of public events. This definition of the functions of a newspaper was long ago scornfully cast aside as absurdly antiquated and insuffi- cient to include the myriad circulation-making enterprises of yellow journalism. These papers are not simply pur- veyors of news and comment, but have what, for lack of a better term, may be called constructive policies of their / / ^4^ s 168 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW own. In the making of law, for example, not content with mere criticism of legislators and their measures, the new journalism conceives and exploits measures of its own, drafted by its own counsel, and introduced as legislative bills by statesmen to whom flattering press notices and the publication of an occasional blurred photograph are a sufficient reward. Not infrequently measures thus con- -Vj-jTceived and drafted are supported by specially prepared "monster petitions," containing thousands of names, badly written and of doubtful authenticity, of supposed parti- ' fcans, and by special trains filled with orators and a hetero- geneous rabble described in the news columns as "com- mittees of citizens," who at critical periods are collected :her and turned loose upon the assembled lawmakers as an impressive object lesson of the public interest fer- vidly aroused on behalf of the newspaper's bill. ic ethics of persuasion is an interesting subject. It i^jj, falls, however, outside the scope of this article. It is im- tv> 4 ^*P ss ible to lay down any hard and fast rule by which to determine in all cases what form of newspaper influence -* is legitimate and what illegitimate. The most obvious *sit* characteristic of yellow journalism in its relation to law- u*t JL making is that it prefers ordinarily to obtain its ends by J 11 the use of intimidation rather than by persuasion. The i j" monster petition scheme just referred to is merely one v illustrative expression of this preference. When a news- paper of this type is interested in having some official do s particular thing in some particular way, it spends little of its space or time in attempting to show the logical propriety or necessity for the action it desires. It seeks first and foremost to make the official see that the eyes of the people are on him, and that any action by him contrary to that which the newspaper assures him the people want would be fraught with serious personal consequences. The SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW 169 principal point with these papers is always "the people demand" (in large capitals) this or that, and the logic or reason of the demand is obscured or ignored. It is the headless Demos transformed into printer's ink. If by any chance any official, so unfortunate as to have ideas of his own as to how his office should be conducted, proves ob- durate to the demands of the printed voice of the people, he becomes the target for newspaper attacks, calculated to destroy any reputation he may previously have had for intelligence, sobriety of judgment, or public efficiency, his tormentor, so far as libel is concerned, keeping, however, as Fabian says, "on the windy side of the law." An amusing illustration of this kind of warfare occurred in New York some years ago, when for several weeks one of these newspapers published daily attacks upon the President of the Board of Police Commissioners, because he refused to follow the newspaper theories of the proper way of enforcing, or rather not enforcing, the Excise Law. The newspaper took the position that, while the powers of the Police Department were being largely turned to ferret- ing out saloon-keepers who were keeping open after hours or on Sundays, the detection of serious crimes was being neglected, and that a "carnival of crime," to use the pic- turesque wording of its headlines, was being carried on in the city. Finally, in one of its issues the paper published a list of thirty distinct criminal offenses of the most serious character, murder, felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny, and the like, all alleged to have been commit- ted within a week, in none of which, it asserted, had any criminal been captured or any stolen property recovered. Events which followed immediately upon this last publica- tion showed that the newspaper had erred grievously in its estimate of this particular official under attack. A few days later the Police Commissioner, Mr. Roosevelt, published in 13 170 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW the columns of all the other newspapers in New York the result of his own personal investigation of these thirty items of criminal news, showing conclusively that twenty-eight of them were canards pure and simple, and that in the remaining two police activity had brought about results of a most satisfactory kind. Following this statement of the facts was appended an adaptation of some fifteen or twenty lines from Macaulay's merciless essay on Barrere, perhaps the finest philippic against a notorious and in- veterate liar which the English language affords, so worded that they should apply, not only to the newspaper which published this spurious list of alleged crimes, but to the editor and proprietor personally. The carnival of crime ended at once. It is, of course, impossible to determine accurately the extent of newspaper influence upon legislation and the con- duct of public officials by these systematic attempts at bullying. Making all due allowance, however, there have been within recent years many significant illustrations of the influence of yellow journalism upon the shaping of public events. Mr. Creelman is quite right in saying, as he does in his interesting book, On the Great Highway, that A the story of the Spanish war is incomplete which overlooks the part that yellow journalism had in bringing it on. He tells us that, some time prior to the commencement of hos- tilities, a well-known artist, who had been sent to Cuba as a representative of one of these papers and had there grown tired of inaction, telegraphed his chief that there was no prospect of war, and that he wished to come home. The reply he received was characteristic of the journalism he represented: "You furnish the pictures, we will furnish the war." It is characteristic because the new journalism aims to direct rather than to influence, and seeks, to an extent never attempted or conceived by the journalism it SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW 171 endeavors so strenuously to supplant, to create public sen- timent rather than to mould it, to make measures and find men. The larger number of the readers of the great sensational newspapers live at or near the place of publication, where .,,-,, i the half-dozen daily editions can be placed in their hands- hot from the press. The news furnished in them is, the most part, of distinctively local interest. In their w . , columns the horizon is narrow and inexpressibly dingy. 77^ Detailed narrations of sensational local happenings, pref- erably crimes and scandals, are given conspicuous places, while more important events occurring outside the city limits are treated with telegraphic brevity. These papers constitute beyond question the greatest provincializing in- fluence in metropolitan life. The particular local functions of sensational journalism which bring it in close relation to the courts result from its self-imposed responsibilities as detective and punisher of ^mfc crime and as director of municipal officials. So far as the 'T latter are concerned, yellow journalism has apparently a - good record. Many recent instances might, for example, be cited where these newspapers, acting under the names of "dummy" plaintiffs, have sought and obtained pi liminary or temporary injunctions against threatened offi- cial malfeasance, or where they have instituted legal pro- ceedings to expose corrupt jobbery. As to the actual re- sults thus accomplished, other than the publicity obtained, ^"^ the general public is not in a position to judge. Tempo- rary injunctions granted merely until the merits of case can be heard and determined are of no particular value if, when the trial day comes, the newspaper plaintiff < , jr - fails to appear, the case is dismissed, and the temporary **" injunction vacated. On such occasions, and they are more frequent than the general public is aware, the newspaper LA -. '-A fr.T-j: ^. 172 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW takes little pains to inform its readers of the final results of the matter over which it made such hue and cry months before. But, however fair-minded persons may differ as to the results actually obtained by these newspaper law enter- prises in the civil courts, there is less room for difference of opinion as to the methods with which they are con- ducted. They are almost invariably so managed as to convey to the minds of their readers the idea that the decision obtained, if a favorable one, has not come as the result of a just rule of law laid down by a wise and fair- minded judge, but has been obtained rather in spite of both law and judge, and wholly because a newspaper of enor- mous circulation, championing the cause of the people, has wrested the law to its clamorous authority. The atti- tude of mind thus created is well exemplified in a remark made to me by a business man of more than ordinary intelligence, in discussing an injunction granted in one of these newspaper suits arising out of a water scandal: "Why, of course Judge - - granted the injunction. Everybody knew he would. There is not a judge on the bench who would have the nerve to decide the other way with all the row the newspapers have made about it. He knows where his bread is buttered." n One of the great features of counting-house journalism is its real or supposed ability in the detection and punish- ment of crime. Whether this field is a legitimate one for a newspaper to enter need not be discussed here. It goes without saying that an interesting murder mystery sells many papers, and if as a result of skillful detective work the guilty party is finally brought to the gallows or the SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW 173 electric chair, it is a triumph for the paper whose reporters are the sleuths. While such efforts, when crowned with f success, are the source probably of much credit and reve- nue, there are various disagreeable possibilities connected with failure which the astute managers of these papers can never afford to overlook. While verdicts in libel suits are in this country generally small (compared with those in England), and the libel law itself is filled with curious and antiquated technicalities by which verdicts may be avoided or reversed, nevertheless there is always the possibility that an innocent victim of newspaper prosecution will turn the tables and draw smart money from the enterprising jour- nal's coffers. The acquittal of the person who has been thrust into jeopardy by newspaper detectives is obviously a serious matter for the paper. On the other hand, there are no important consequences from conviction except, of course, to the person condemned. Is it to be expected that the newspaper, under such circumstances, will preserve a disinterested and impartial tone in its news columns while the man in the dock is fighting for his life before the judge and jury? Is it remarkable that during the course of such a trial the newspaper should fill its pages with ghastly car- toons of the defendant, with murder drawn in every line of his face, or that it should by its reports of the trial itself seek to impress its readers with his guilt before it be proved according to law? that it should send its reporters explor- ing for new witnesses for the prosecution, and should pub- lish in advance of their appearance on the witness stand the substance of the damaging testimony it is claimed they will give? that it should go even further, and (as was re- cently shown in the course of a great poisoning case in New York city, the history of which forms a striking commen- tary on all these abuses) actually pay large sums of money 174 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW to induce persons to make affidavits incriminating the defendant on trial? Unfortunately, too often these efforts receive aid from prosecuting officers whose sense of public duty is impaired or destroyed by the itch for reputation and a cheap and tawdry type of forensic triumph. Despicable enough is the district attorney who grants interviews to newspaper reporters during the progress of a criminal trial, and who makes daily statements to them of what he intends to prove on the morrow unless prevented by the law as expounded by the trial judge. A careful study of the progress of more than one great criminal trial in New York City would show how illegal and improper matter prejudicial to the person accused of crime has been ruled out by the trial court, only to have the precise information spread about in thousands upon thousands of copies of sensational newspapers, with a reasonable certainty of their scare headlines, at least, being read by some of the jury. The pernicious influence of these journals upon the courts of justice in criminal trials (and not merely in the comparatively small number in which they are themselves the instigators of the criminal proceedings) is that they often make fair play an impossibility. The days and weeks that are now not infrequently given to selecting jurors in important criminal cases are spent in large measure by counsel in examining talesmen in an endeavor to find, if possible, twelve men in whose minds the accused has not been already "tried by newspaper" and condemned or acquitted. When the public feeling in a community is such that it will be impossible for a party to an action to obtain an unprejudiced jury, a change of venue is allowed to some other county where the state of the public mind is more judicial. It is a significant fact that nearly all SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW applications for such change in the place of trial from New York City have been for many years based mainly upon complaints of the inflammatory zeal of the sensational press. The courts in Massachusetts (where judges are not elected by the people, but are appointed by the governor) have been very prompt in dealing in a very wholesome and summary way with editors of papers publishing matter calculated to affect improperly the fairness of jury trials. Whether it be from better principles or an inspiring fear of jail, the courts of public justice in that state receive little interference from unwarranted newspaper stories. Some of the cases in which summary punishment has been meted out from the bench to Massachusetts editors will impress New York readers rather curiously. For example, just before the trial of a case involving the amount of compen- sation the owner of land should receive for his land taken for a public purpose, a newspaper in Worcester informed its readers that "the town offered Loring [the plaintiff] $80 at the time of the taking, but he demanded $250, and not getting it, went to law." Another paper published substantially the same statement, and both were sum- marily punished by fine, the court holding that these articles were calculated to obstruct the course of justice, and that they constituted contempt of court. During the trial of a criminal prosecution in Boston a few years ago against a railway engineer for manslaughter in wrecking his train, the editor of the Boston Traveler intimated edi- torially that the railway company was trying to put the blame on the engineer as a scapegoat, and that the result of the trial would probably be in his favor. The editor was sentenced to jail for this publication. The foregoing are undoubtedly extreme cases, and are chosen simply to show the extent to which some American courts will go in 176 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW punishing newspaper contempts. All of these decisions were taken on appeal to the highest court of the state and were there affirmed. The California courts have been equally vigorous in several cases of recent years, notably in connection with publications made during the celebra- ted Durant murder trial in San Francisco. The English courts are, if anything, even more severe in this class of cases, a recent decision of the Court of King's Bench being a noteworthy illustration. During the trial of two persons for felony, the "special crime in- vestigator" of the Bristol Weekly Dispatch sent to his paper reports, couched in a fervid and sensational form, containing a number of statements relating to matters as to which evidence would not have been admissible in any event against the defendants on their trial, and reflect- ing severely on their characters. Both of the defendants referred to were convicted of the crime for which they were indicted, and sentenced to long terms of imprison- ment. Shortly after their conviction and sentence the edi- tor of the Dispatch and this special crime investigator were prosecuted criminally for perverting the course of justice, and each of them was sentenced to six weeks in prison. Lord Alverstone, who rendered the opinion on the appeal taken by the editor and reporter, in affirming the judgment of conviction, expresses himself in language well worth repeating. He says: 1 - "A person accused of crime in this country can properly be convicted in a court of justice only upon evidence which is legally admissible, and which is adduced at his trial in legal form and shape. Though the accused be really guilty of the offense charged against him, the due course of law and justice is nevertheless perverted and obstructed if 1 1 K. B. (1902), 77. G. W. A. SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW 177 those who have to try him are induced to approach the question of his guilt or innocence with minds into which prejudice has been instilled by published assertions of his guilt, or imputations against his life and character to which the laws of the land refuse admission as evidence." In the state of New York the courts have permitted themselves to be deprived of the greater portion of the power which the courts of Massachusetts, in common with those of most of the states, exercise of punishing for con- tempt the authors of newspaper publications prejudicial to fair trials. Some twenty-five years ago the state legis- lature passed an act defining and limiting the cases in which summary punishment for contempt should be in- flicted by the courts. Similar legislation has been at- tempted in other states, only to be declared unconstitu- tional by the courts themselves, which hold that the power to punish is inherent in the judiciary independently of legis- lative authority, and that, as the Supreme Court of Ohio says, "The power the legislature does not give, it cannot take away." But while the courts of Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, Colorado, and California have thus resisted legislative encroachment upon their constitutional powers, the highest court of New York has submitted to having its power to protect its own use- fulness and dignity shorn and curtailed by the legislature. The result is that while by legislative permission they may punish the editor or proprietor of a paper for contempt, it can be only when the offense consists in publishing "a false or grossly inaccurate report of a judicial proceeding." The insufficiency of such a power is apparent when one considers that the greater number of the cartoons and comments contained in publications fairly complained of as prejudicing individual legal rights are not, and do not pretend to be, reports of judicial proceedings at all, but 178 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW are entirely accounts of matters "outside the record." If the acts done, for example, in any of the cases cited as illustrations above, had been done under similar circum- stances in New York, the New York courts would have been powerless to take any proceeding whatever in the nature of contempt against the respective offenders. The result is that in the state which suffers most from the gross and unbridled license of a sensational and lawless press the courts possess the least power to repress and restrain its excesses. A change of law which shall give New York courts power to deal summarily with trial by newspaper is imperatively needed. To the two examples which have just been given of the direct influence which counting-house journalism seeks to exert upon judges and jurors, might be added others of equal importance, would space permit. But all improper influences upon legislators or other public officials, or upon judges or jurors, which these papers may exercise or at- tempt to exercise, are as naught in comparison with their 1 systematic and constant efforts to instill into the minds of |the ignorant and poor, who constitute the greater part of their readers, the impression that justice is not blind but bought; that the great corporations own the judges, par- | ticularly those of the Federal courts, body and soul; that American institutions are rotten to the core, and that leg- islative halls and courts of justice exist as instruments of oppression, to preserve the rights of property by deny- ing or destroying the rights of man. No greater injury can be done to the working people than to create in their minds this false and groundless suspicion concerning the integrity of the judiciary. In a country whose political existence, in the ultimate analysis, depends so largely upon the intelligence and honesty of its judges, the general wel- fare requires, not merely that judges should be men of SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW 179 integrity, but that the people should believe them to be so. It is this confidence which counting-house journalism has set itself deliberately at undermining. It is not so impor- tant that the people should believe in the wisdom of their judges. The liberty of criticism is not confined to the bar and what Judge Grover used to call "the lawyer's inalien- able privilege of damning the adverse judge out of court." There is no divinity which hedges a judge. His opinions and his personality are proper subjects for criti- cism, but the charge of corruption should not be made recklessly and without good cause. It is noticeable that this charge of corruption which yellow journalism makes against the courts is almost in- variably a wholesale charge, never accompanied by any specific accusation against any definite official. These general charges are more frequently expressed by cartoon than by comment. The big-chested Carthaginian labeled "The Trusts," holding a squirming Federal judge in his fist, is a cartoon which in one form or another appears in some of these papers whenever an injunction is granted in a labor dispute at the instance of some great corpora- tion. Justice holding her scales with a workingman un- evenly balanced by an immense bag of gold; a human basilisk with dollar marks on his clothes, a judge sticking out of his pocket, and a workingman under his foot; Jus- tice holding her scales in one hand while the other is conveniently open to receive the bribe that is being placed in it these and many other cartoons of similar character and meaning are familiar to all readers of sensa- tional newspapers. If their readers believe the cartoons, what faith can they have left in American institutions? What alternative is offered but anarchy if wealth has poisoned the fountains of justice; if reason is powerless 180 SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW and money omnipotent? If the judges are corrupt, the political heavens are empty. There is no occasion to defend the American judiciary from charges of wholesale corruption. They might be passed over in silence if they were addressed merely to the educated and intelligent, or to those familiar by personal contact with the actual operations of the courts. That there are many judicial decisions rendered which are un- sound in their reasoning may be readily granted. That some of the Federal judges are men of very narrow gauge, and that, during the recent coal strike for example, in grant- ing sweeping, wholesale injunctions against strikers they have accompanied their decrees at times with opinions so unjudicial, so filled with mediaeval prejudice and rancor against legitimate organizations of working people as to rouse the indignation of right-minded men, may be ad- mitted. But prejudice and corruption are totally dis- similar. There is always hope that an honest though prejudiced man may in time see reason. This hope inspires patience and forbearance. Justice can wait with confi- dence while the prejudiced or ultra-conservative judge grows wise, and the principles of law are strongest and surest when they have been established by surmounting the prejudice and doubts of many timid and over-con- servative men. But justice and human progress should not and will not wait until the corrupt judge becomes honest. To thoughtful men the severest charge yet to be made against this new journalism is not merely the influ- ence it attempts to exert, and perhaps does exert, in par- ticular cases, but that, wantonly and without just cause, it endeavors to destroy in the hearts and minds of thousands of newspaper readers a deserved confidence in the integ- rity of the courts and a patient faith in the ultimate tri- umph of justice by law. THE CRITIC AND THE LAW BY RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD A RECENT prosecution by the People of New York, rep- resented by Mr. Jerome, of a suit for criminal libel, at- tracted the attention of the entire nation. The alleged libel set forth in the complaint had appeared in Collier's Weekly, stating the connection of a certain judge with a certain unwholesome publication. The defense to this action was that the statement was true; and, somewhat to the joy of all concerned, excepting the judge, the unwhole- some publication, and those who were exposed in the course of trial as being its creatures, the jury were obliged to find that this defense was sound. 1 From a lawyer's point of view it was surprising to find that even professional critics and editorial writers looked upon this case as in- volving that part of the Common Law which prescribes the limits of criticism. It only needs to be pointed out that the statement relied upon as defamation was a state- ment of fact, to show that the case against the Collier editors involved no question of a critic's right to criticise or an editor's right to express his opinion. If the suit had been founded on the criticism of the contents of the un- wholesome publication which had been offered to the pub- lic for those to read who would, then the law of fair com- ment would have controlled. No doubt, however, even the trained guides to the public taste seldom realize the 1 The verdict for Collier's Weekly, the defendant, was rendered on January 26, 1906. Cf. Collier's Weekly, February 10, 1906, vol. 36. p. 23. ED. 182 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW presence of a law governing their freedom of comment. Such law is in force none the less, and, though the instinct to express only fair and honest opinion will generally suf- fice to prevent a breach of legal limits, it is evident that the consideration of the law upon the subject is important, not only to the professional critic, but to any man who has enough opinion on matters of public interest to be worth an expression. It is public policy that the free expression of opinion on matters of public interest should be as little hampered as possible. Fair comment, says the law, is the preventive of affectation and folly, the educator of the public taste and ethics, and the incentive to progress in the arts. Often fair comment is spoken of as privileged. But privilege in its legal sense means that some statement is allowed to some particular person on some particular occasion a state- ment that would be libel or slander unless it came within the realm of privilege. On the other hand, fair comment is not the right of any particular person or class, or the privilege of any particular occasion; it is not exclusively the right of the press or of one who is a critic in the sense that he is an expert. Doubtless the newspaper or profes- sional critic is given a greater latitude by juries, who share the prevalent and not ill-advised view that opinion ex- pressed by the public press is usually more sound than private comment. The law, however, recognizes no such distinction. Any one may be a critic. In civil actions of defamation, truth in a general way is always a defense; whether the person against whom the suit is brought has made a statement of fact or opinion, if he can prove his words to be true, he is safe from liability. Such was the defense of the Collier editors in the criminal case mentioned above. Fair comment, however, does not THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 185 need to be true to be defended, for it is, if we may use the phrase, its own defense. Then what is fair comment? The right to comment is confined to matters which are of interest to the public. To endeavor to give a list of matters answering this requirement would be an endless task; even the courts of England and this country have passed upon only a few. Instances when the attention, judgment, and taste of the public are called upon are, however, most frequent in the fields of politics and of the arts. Such are the acts of those entrusted with functions of government, the direction of public institutions and possibly church matters, published books, pictures which have been exhibited, architecture, theatres, concerts, and public entertainments. Two reasons prohibit comment upon that which has not become the affair of the public nor has been offered to the attention of the public : the pub- lic is not benefited by the criticism of that which it does not know, and about which it has no concern, and the act of the doer or the work of the artist against which the com- ment is directed cannot be said to have been submitted to open criticism. The requirement, which seems right in principle, and which has been laid down many times in the remarks of English judges, was perhaps overlooked in Battersby vs. Collier, a New York case. Colonel Battersby, it ap- peared, was a veteran of the Civil War, and for six years had been engaged in painting a picture representing the dramatic meeting of General Lee and General Grant, at which Colonel Battersby was present. This painting was intended for exhibition at the Columbian Exposition. Un- fortunately, a few days before Christmas, a young woman of a literary turn of mind had an opportunity to view this immense canvas, and was less favorably impressed with the painting than with the pathos surrounding its incep- II 184 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW tion and development. Accordingly she wrote a story headed by that handiest of handy titles, The Colonel's Christmas, but she did not sufficiently conceal the identity of her principal character. Colonel Battersby sued the publishers, and for damages relied upon the aspersions cast upon his picture, which in the story was called a "daub." More than that, there occurred in the narrative these words: "What matters it if the Colonel's ideas of color, light, and shade were a trifle hazy, if his perspective was a something extraordinary, his 'breadth' and 'treatment' and 'tone' truly marvelous, the Surrender was a great, vast picture, and it was the Colonel's life." The court held ('_:, that this was a fair criticism; but it does not plainly ap- pear that Colonel Battersby had yet submitted his six- year painting to the attention of the public, or that it had , at the time become an object of general public interest; and if it had not, the decision would seem doubtful in On the other hand, in Gott vs. Pulsifer there was in- volved the "Cardiff Giant," which all remember as the merriest of practical jokes in rock, which made Harvard scientists rub their eyes and called forth from one Yale professor a magazine article to prove that the man of stone was the god Baal brought to New York State by the Phoenicians. The court said that all manner of abuse might be heaped on the Giant's adamant head. "Any- \ thing made subject of public exhibition," said they, "is open to fair and reasonable comment, no matter how severe." So you might with impunity call the Cardiff Giant, or Barnum's famous long-haired horse, a hoax; they were objects of general public interest, and any one might have passed judgment upon them. Letters written to a newspaper may be criticised most severely, as often happens when Constant Reader enters THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 185 into a warfare of communication with Old Subscriber; and so long as the contention is free from actionable person- alities, and remains within the bounds of fair comment, neither will find himself in trouble. Nor is the commercial advertisement immune from caustic comment, if the com- ment is sincere. The rhymes in the street cars, the posters on the fences, the handbill that is thrust over the domestic threshold, and the signboard, that has now become a factor in every rural sunset or urban sunrise, must bear the com- ment upon their taste, their efficiency, and their ingenuity, which by their very nature they invite. In England a writer was sued by the maker of a commodity for travelers advertised as the "Bag of Bags." The writer thought the commercial catch-name was silly, vulgar, and ill-con- ceived, and he said so. The manufacturer in court urged that the comment injured his trade; but the judges were inclined to think that an advertisement appealing to the public was subject to the public opinion and its fair ex- pression. What is of interest to the general public, so that comment thereon will be a right of the public, may, how- ever, in certain cases trouble the jury. A volume of love sonnets printed and circulated privately, and the architec- ture of a person's private dwelling, might furnish very delicate cases. In a time when those who desire to be conspicuous suc- ceed so well in becoming so, it is rather amusing to wonder just what may be the difference between the right to com- ment on the dancer on the stage, and on the lady who, if she has her way, will sit in a box. Both court public notice the dancer by her penciled eyebrows, her tinted cheeks, her jewelry, her gown, and her grace; the lady in the box, perhaps, by all these things except the last; both wish favorable comment, and perhaps ought to bear ridi- cule, if their cheeks are too tinted, their eyebrows too 14 AND THE LAW penciled, their jewelry too generous, and their gowns too ornate. A more sober view, however, will show that the matter is one of proof. The dancer who exhibits herself and her dance for a consideration necessarily invites ex- pressions of opinion, but it would be difficult to show in a court of law that the gala lady in the box meant to seek either commendation or disapproval. A vastly more important and interesting query, and one which must arise from the present state and tendency of industrial conditions, is whether the acts of men in com- mercial activity may ever become so prominent, and so far-reaching in their effect, that it can well be said that they compel a universal public interest, and that public comment is impliedly invited by reason of their conspic- uous and semi-public nature. It may be said that at no time have private industries become of such startling inter- est to the community at large as at present in the United States. At least a few have had an effect more vital to citizens, perhaps, than the activities of some classes of public officials which are open to fair comment, and cer- tainly more vital than the management of some semi- public institutions, which also are open to honest criti- cism. As to corporations, it would seem that, as the public, through the chartering power of legislation, gives them a right to exist and act, an argument that the public retains the right to comment upon then* management must have some force; in the case of other forms of commercial activ- ity, whose powers are inherent and not delegated, the ques- tion must rest on the determination of the best public policy a determination which in all classes of cases de- cides, and ought to decide, the right of fair comment. THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 187 ii When once the comment is decided to be upon a matter of public interest, there arises the question whether or not the comment is fair. The requirement of the law in regard to fairness is not based, as might be supposed, upon the consideration whether comment is mild or se- vere, serious or ridiculing, temperate or exaggerated; the critic is not hampered in the free play of his honest opin- ions; he is not prohibited from using the most stinging satire, the most extravagant burlesque, or the most lacer- ating invective. In 1808, Lord Ellenborough, in Carr vs. Hood, stated the length of leash given to the critic, and the law has not since been changed. Sir John Carr, Knight, was the author of several volumes, entitled A Stranger in France, A Northern Summer, A Stranger in Ireland, and other titles of equal connotation. Thomas Hood was rather more deserving of a lasting place in literature than his victim, because of his sense of humor, and his well-known rapid- fire satire. According to the declaration of Sir John Carr, the plaintiff, Hood had published a book of burlesque in which there was a frontispiece entitled "The Knight leav- ing Ireland with Regret," and "containing and represent- ing in the said print, a certain false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory and ridiculous representation of said Sir John in the form of a man of ludicrous and ridiculous ap- pearance holding a pocket handkerchief to his face, and appearing to be weeping," and also representing "a mali- cious and ridiculous man of ludicrous and ridiculous appear- ance following the said Sir John," and bending under the weight of several books, and carrying a tied-up pocket handkerchief with "Wardrobe" printed thereon, "thereby falsely scandalously and maliciously meaning and intend- 188 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW ing to represent, for the purpose of rendering the said Sir John ridiculous and exposing him to laughter, ridicule and contempt," that the books of the said Sir John "were so heavy as to cause a man to bend under the weight thereof, and that his the said Sir John's wardrobe was very small and capable of being contained in a pocket handkerchief." And at the end of this declaration Sir John alleged that he was damaged because of the consequent decline in his literary reputation, and, it may be supposed, because there- after his books did not appear in the list of the "six best- sellers" in the Kingdom. But no recovery was allowed him, for it was laid down that if a comment, in whatever form, only ridiculed the plaintiff as an author, there was no ground for action. Said the eminent justice, "One writer, in exposing the follies and errors of another, may make use of ridicule, however poignant. Ridicule is often the fittest weapon for such a purpose. . . . Perhaps the plaintiff's works are now un- salable, but is he to be indemnified by receiving a com- pensation from the person who has opened the eyes of the public to the bad taste and inanity of his compositions? . . . We must not cramp observations on authors and their works. . . . The critic does a great service to the public who writes down any vapid or useless publication, such as ought never to have appeared. He checks the dis- semination of bad taste, and prevents people from wasting both their time and money upon trash. Fair and candid criticism every one has a right to publish, although the author may suffer a loss from it. Such a loss the law does not consider an injury, because it is a loss which the party ought to sustain. It is, in short, the loss of fame and profits to which he was never entitled." Criticism need not be fair and just, in the sense that it conforms to the judgment of the majority of the public, or THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 189 the ideas of a judge, or the estimate of a jury; but it must remain within certain bounds circumscribed by the law. In the first place, comment must be made honestly; in recent cases much more stress has been laid upon this point than formerly. It is urged that, if criticism is not sincere, it is not valuable to the public, and the ground of public policy, upon which the doctrine of fair criticism is built, fails to give support to comment which is born of improper motives or begotten from personal hatred or malice. Yet he who seeks for cases of criticism which have been decided against the critic solely on the ground that the critic was malicious must look far. The requirement in practice seems difficult of application, since, if the critic does not depart from the work that he is criticising, to strike at the author thereof as a private individual, and does not mix with his comment false statements or imputations of bad motives, there is nothing to show legal malice, and it is almost impossible to prove actual malice. If you should conclude that your neighbor's painting which has been on exhibition is a beautiful marine, but if, because you do not like your neighbor, you pronounce it to be a dreadful mire of blue paint, it would be very hard for any other person to prove that at the moment you spoke you were not speaking honestly. Again, if the comment is within the other restrictions put by the law upon criticism, it would seem that to open the question whether or not the com- ment was malicious, is in effect very nearly submitting to the jury the question whether or not they disagree with the critic, since the jury have no other method of reaching a conclusion that the critic was or was not impelled by malice. Malice, in fact, is a bugaboo in the law and the law, especially the civil law, avoids dealing with him whenever it can. Yet it is quite certain that malice must be a con- 190 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW sideration in determining what is fair comment; an opinion which is not honest is of no help to the public in its striving to attain high morals and unerring discernment. All the reasons of public policy that give criticism its rights fly out of the window when malice walks in at the door. Some decisions of the courts seem to set the standard of fair comment even higher. They not only demand that the critic speak with an honest belief in his opinion, but insist also that a person taking upon himself to criticise must exercise a reasonable degree of judgment. As one English judge expressed it in charging the jury: "You must determine whether any fair man, however exagger- ated or obstinate his views, would have said what this criticism has said." It would seem, however, that in many cases this would result in putting the judgment of the jury against that of the critic. To ask the jury whether this comment is such as would be made by a fair man is not distinguishable from asking them whether the comment is fair, and it sometimes happens that, in spite of the opinion of the jury, in fact, the opinion of all the world, the single critic is right, and the rest of the community all wrong. Does any one doubt that the comment of Colum- bus upon the views of those who opposed him would have been considered unfair by a jury of his time, until this doughty navigator proved his judgment correct? What would have happened in a court of law to the man who first said that those who wrote that the earth was flat were stupidly ignorant? Often the opinion or criticism which is the most valuable to the community as a contribution to truth is the very opinion which the community as a body would call a wild inference by an unfair man; to hold the critic up to the standard of a "fair man" is to deprive the public of the benefit of the most powerful influences against the perpetuity of error. THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 191 No better illustration could be found than the case of Merrivale and Wife vs. Carson, in which a dramatic critic said of a play: "The Whip Hand . . . gives us nothing but a hash-up of ingredients which have been used ad nauseam, until one rises in protestation against the loving, confiding, fatuous husband with the naughty wife, and her double existence, the good male genius, the limp aristo- crat, and the villainous foreigner. And why dramatic authors will insist that in modern society comedies the villain must be a foreigner, and the foreigner must be a villain, is only explicable on the ground that there is more or less romance about such gentry. It is more in con- sonance with accepted notions that your continental crou- pier would make a much better fictitious prince, marquis, or count, than would, say, an English billiard-maker or stable lout. And so the Marquis Colonna in The Whip Hand is offered up by the authors upon the altar of tradi- tion, and sacrificed in the usual manner when he gets too troublesome to permit of the reconciliation of husband and wife and lover and maiden, and is proved, also much as usual, to be nothing more than a kicked-out croupier." The jury found that this amounted to falsely setting out the drama as adulterous and immoral, and was not the criticism of a fair man. Granting that there was the gen- eral imputation of immorality, it seems, justly considered, a matter of the critic's opinion. Is not the critic in effect saying, "To my mind the play is adulterous; no matter what any one else may think, the play suggests immorality to me"? And if this is the honest opinion of the critic, no matter how much juries may differ from him, it would seem that to stifle this individual expression was against public policy, the very ground on which fair criticism be- comes a universal right. It does not very clearly appear that the case of Merrivale and Wife vs. Carson was decided 192 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW exclusively on the question whether the criticism was that of a fair man, but this was the leading point of the case. The decision and the doctrine it sets forth seem open to much doubt. in Criticism must never depart from a consideration of the work of the artist or artisan, or the public acts of a person, to attack the individual himself, apart from his connec- tion with the particular work or act which is being criti- cised. The critic is forbidden to touch upon the domestic or private life of the individual, or upon such matters con- cerning the individual as are not of general public interest, at the peril of exceeding his right. Whereas, in Fry vs. Bennett, an article in a newspaper purported to criticise the management of a theatrical troupe, it was held to con- tain a libel, since it went beyond matters which concerned the public, and branded the conduct of the manager to- ward his singers as unjust and oppressive. J. Fenimore Cooper was plaintiff in another suit which illustrates the same rule of law. This author had many a gallant engagement with his critics, and, though it has been said that a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client, Mr. Cooper, conducting his own actions, won from many publishers, including Mr. Horace Greeley and Mr. Webb. In Cooper vs. Stone the facts reveal that the author, having completed a voluminous Naval History of the United States, in which he had given the lion's share of credit for the Battle of Lake Erie, not to the command- ing officer, Oliver H. Perry, but to Jesse D. Elliot, who was a subordinate, was attacked by the New York Com- mercial Advertiser, which imputed to the author "a disre- gard of justice and propriety as a man," represented him as infatuated with vanity, mad with passion, and publish- THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 193 ing as true, statements and evidence which had been falsified and encomiums which had been retracted. This was held to exceed the limits of fair criticism, since it at- tacked the character of the author as well as the book itself. The line, however, is not very finely drawn, as may be seen by a comparison of the above case with Browning vs. Van Rensselaer, in which the plaintiff was the author of a genealogical treatise entitled Americans of Royal Descent. A young woman, who was interested in founding a society to be called the "Order of the Crown, "wrote to the defend- ant, inviting her to join and recommending to her the book. The latter answered this letter with a polite refusal, say- ing that she thought such a society was un-American and pretentious, and that the book gave no authority for its statements. The court said that this, even though it im- plied that the author was at fault, was not a personal attack on his private character. An intimate relationship almost always exists between the doer of an act which interests the public and the act itself; the architect is closely associated with his building, the painter with his picture, the author with his works, the inventor with his patent, the tradesman with his adver- tisement, and the singer with his song; and the critic will find it impossible not to encroach to some extent upon the personality of the individual. It seems, however, that the privilege of comment extends to the individual only so far as is necessary to intelligent criticism of his particular work under discussion. To write that Mr. Palet's latest picture shows that some artists are only fit to paint signs is a com- ment on the picture, but to write, apart from comment upon the particular work, that Mr. Palet is only fit to paint signs is an attack upon the artist, and if it is untrue, it is libel for which the law allows recovery. 194 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW No case presents a more complete confusion of the indi- vidual and his work than that of an actor. His physical characteristics, as well as his personality, may always be said to be presented to general public interest along with the words and movements which constitute his acting. The critic can hardly speak of the performance without speaking of the actor himself, who, it may be argued, pre- sents to a certain extent his own bodily and mental char- acteristics to the judgment of the public, almost as much as do the ossified man and the fat lady of the side show. The case of Cherry vs. the Des Moines Leader will serve to illustrate how far the critic who is not actuated by malice may comment upon the actors as well as the performance, and still be held to have remained within the limits of fair criticism. The three Cherry sisters were performers in a variety act, which consisted in part of a burlesque on Trilby, and a more serious presentation entitled, The Gypsy's Warning. The judge stated that in his opinion the evidence showed that the performance was ridiculous. The testimony of Miss Cherry included a statement that one of the songs was a "sort of eulogy on ourselves," and that the refrain consisted of these words : " Cherries ripe and cherries red; The Cherry Sisters are still ahead." She also stated that in The Gypsy's Warning she had taken the part of a Spaniard or a cavalier, and that she always supposed a Spaniard and a cavalier were one and the same thing. The defendant published the following comment on the performance: "Erne is an old jade of fifty summers, Jessie a frisky filly of forty, and Addie, the flower of the family, a capering monstrosity of thirty-five. Their long, skinny arms, equipped with talons at the extremities, swung mechanically, and anon waved frantically at the THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 195 suffering audience. The mouths of their rancid features opened like caverns, and sounds like the wailings of damned souls issued therefrom. They pranced around the stage with a motion that suggested a cross between the danse du venire and fox-trot strange creatures with painted faces and hideous mien." This was held to be fair criticism and not libelous; for the Misses Cherry to a certain extent presented their personal appearance as a part of their performance. The critic must not mix with his comment statement of facts which are not true, since the statement of facts is not criticism at all. In Tabbart vs. Tipper, the earliest case on the subject, the defendant, in order to ridicule a book published for children, printed a verse which purported to be an extract from the book, and it was held that this amounted to a false accusation that the author had pub- lished something which in fact he had never published; it was not comment, but an untrue statement of fact. So when, as in Davis vs. Shepstone, the critic, in commenting upon the acts of a government official in Zululand, falsely stated that the officer had been guilty of an assault upon a native chief, the critic went far beyond comment, and was liable for defamation. Not unlike Tabbart vs. Tipper is a recent case, Belknap vs. Ball. The defendant, during a political campaign, printed in his newspaper a coarsely executed imitation of the handwriting of a political candi- date of the opposing party, and an imitation of his signa- ture appeared beneath. The writing contained this mis- spelled, unrhetorical sentence: "I don't propose to go into debate on the tarriff differences on wool, quinine, and such, because I ain't built that way." Readers were led to be- lieve that this was a signed statement by the candidate, and the newspaper was barred from setting up the plea that the writing was only fair criticism made through the 196 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW means of a burlesque; it was held that imputing to the plaintiff something he had never written amounted to a false statement of fact, and was not within fair comment. The dividing line between opinion and statement of fact is, however, most troublesome. Mr. Odgers, in his excel- lent work on Libel and Slander, remarks that the rule for the distinction between the two should be that "if facts are known to hearers or readers or made known by the writer, and their opinion or criticism refers to these true facts, even if it is a statement in form, it is no less an opinion. But if the statement simply stands alone, it is not defended." Applying this rule, what if a critic makes this simple statement: "The latest book of Mr. Anony- mous is of interest to no intelligent man"? According to the opinion of Mr. Odgers, it would seem that such a sen- tence standing alone was a statement of fact, whereas it is manifest that no one can think that the critic meant to say more than that in his opinion the book was not interesting. In Merrivale and Wife vs. Carson, the jury found that the words used by the critic described the play as adulterous, and the court said that this was a misdescription of the play a false statement of fact; but an adulterous play may be one which is only suggestive of adultery; and even if the critic had baldly said that the play was adulterous, many of us would think that he was only expressing his opinion. Since the test of whether the statement is of opinion or of fact lies, not in what the critic secretly intended, but rather in what the hearer or reader understood, the ques- tion is for the jury, and, it seems, should be presented to them by the court in the form: "Would a reasonable man under the circumstances have understood this to be a state- ment of opinion or of fact?" One other care remains for the critic: he must not falsely may be found reported in the Times for November 26 and * * 27, 1878. "The mannerisms and errors of these pictures,"/ // * THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 197 impute a bad motive to the individual when commenting upon his work. No less a critic than Ruskin was held to have made this mistake in the instance of his criticism of one of Mr. Whistler's pictures. This well-known libel case nd * M wrote Mr. Ruskin, alluding to the pictures of Mr. Burne- Jones, "whatever may be their extent, are never affected or indolent. The work is natural to the painter, however strange to us, and is wrought with utmost care, however -Jjffo*/ far, to his own or our desire, the result may yet be incom- plete. Scarcely as much can be said for any other picture in the modern school; their eccentricities are almost always in some degree forced, and their imperfections gratuitously if not impertinently indulged. For Mr. Whistler's own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask 200 guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Out of all this, stinging as it must have been to Mr. Whistler, unless, since he loved enemies and hated friends, he therefore found pleasure in the metaphorical thrashings he received, the jury could find only one phrase, "wilful imposture," which, because it imputed bad motives, over- stepped the bounds of fair criticism. Mr. Odgers's treatise states the rule to be that "When no ground is assigned for an inference of bad motives, or when the writer states the imputation of bad motives as a fact within his knowledge, then he is only protected if the imputation is true. But when the facts are set forth, to- gether with the inference, and the reader may judge of the 198 THE CRITIC AND THE LAW right or wrong of the opinion or inference, then if the facts are true, the writer is protected." It is, however, difficult to see why the imputation of bad motives in the doer of an act or the creator of a work of art should in any case come under the right of fair comment, for, no matter how bad the motives of the individual may be, they are of no con- sequence to the public. If a book is immoral, it is imma- terial to a fair criticism whether or not the author meant it to have an immoral effect; the public is not helped to a proper judgment of the book by any one's opinion of the motives of the author, and if the book is bad in its effect, it makes it no better that the author was impelled by the best of intentions, or it makes it no worse that the author was acting with the most evil designs. And if, as in most of the cases that have arisen, the imputation is one of in- sincerity, fraud, or deception practiced upon the public, where, for example, the critic, in commenting upon a medical treatise, about which he had made known all the facts, said that he thought the author wrote the book, not in the interest of scientific truth, but rather to draw trade by exploiting theories which he did not believe himself, it would seem that this charge of fraud or deception should not be protected as a piece of fair comment, but that it should be put upon an equality with all other imputations against an individual, which if untrue and damaging would be held to be libel or slander. Under Mr. Odgers's rule, in making a comment upon the acts of a public officer, one could say, "In pardoning six criminals last week the gov- ernor of the province, we think, has shown that he wishes to encourage criminality." No court would, we think, hold this to be within the right of fair comment upon public matters. If the critic had said, however, "We think that the governor of the province, in pardoning six criminals, encouraged criminality," all the true value of criticism THE CRITIC AND THE LAW 199 remains, and the imputation that the public officer acted from an evil motive is stripped away. The best view seems to be that the right of fair comment will not shield the false imputations of bad motive. Whether or not the critic may impute to the individual certain opinions does not seem to be settled, but logically this would be quite as much a statement of fact, or a criti- cism directed at the individual, as an imputation of bad motives. A few courts in this country have expressed a leaning to the opposite view, but the ground upon which they place their opinion does not appear. From the legal point of view, then, we as critics are all held to a high standard of fairness. We must not com- ment upon any but matters of public interest. We must be honest and sincere, but we may express any view, no matter how prejudiced or exaggerated it may be, so long as it does not exceed the limits to which a reasonably fair man would go; we must not attack the individual any more than is consistent with a criticism of that which he makes or does, and we must not expect that we are within our right of comment when we make statements of fact or impute to the individual evil motives. All the world asks the critic to be honest, careful, above spite and personalities, and polite enough not to thrust upon us a consideration in which we have no interest. The law demands no more. - HONEST LITERARY CRITICISE BY CHARLES MINER THOMPSON THERE are five groups interested in literary criticism: / /0 ^publishers of books, authors, publishers of reviews, critics, , and, finally, the reading public. rjjh^xi obvious interest of all the groups but the last is financial. For the publisher of books, although he may : >nhaVe his pride, criticism is primarily an advertisement : he *&W( I hopes that his books will be so praised as to commend them ^k-rto buyers. For the publisher of book-reviews, although he also may have his pride, criticism is primarily an attraction for advertisements: he hopes that his reviews will lead blishers of books to advertise in his columns. For the critic, whatever his ideals, criticism is, in whole or in part, Q ^ his livelihood. For the author, no matter how disinter- ested, criticism is reputation perhaps a reputation that can be coined. In respect of this financial interest, all four are opposed to the public, which wants nothing but com- petent service a guide to agreeable reading, an adviser in selecting gifts, a herald of new knowledge, a giver of intellectual delight. '/tiw All five groups are discontented with the present condi- ^ rrk tion of American criticism. Publishers of books complain that reviews do not help sales. Publishers of magazines lament that readers do not care for articles on literary subjects. Publishers of news- papers frankly doubt the interest of book-notices. The critic confesses that his occupation is ill-considered and S\S /I ^"^^ .4 / ,^^^/i^ ill-paid. The author wrathfuUy exclaims but what he j O ( * 10. Coloring the News Irwin, Will. The Editor and the News. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 18. (April 1, 1911.) Irwin, Will. Our Kind of People. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 17. (June 17, 1911.) Irwin, Will. The New Era. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 15. (July 8, 1911.) Irwin, Will. The Press Agent. Collier's Weekly, v. 48, p. 24. (Dec. 2, 1911.) Confessions of a Managing Editor. Collier's Weekly, v. 48, p. 18. (Oct. 28, 1911.) Is "Tainted News as Seen in the Making. Bookman, v. 24, p. 396. (Dec. 1906.) J/Baker, Ray Stannard. How Railroads Make Public Opinion, McClure's Magazine, v., 26, p. 535. (March 1906.) /How the Reactionary Press Poisons the Public Mind. Arena, v. 38, p. 318. (Sept. 1907.) 284 BIBLIOGRAPHY n. Suppression of News Irwin, WiU. The Power of the Press. Collier's Weekly, v. 46, p. 15. (Jan. 21, 1911.) Irwin, Will. Advertising Influence. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 15. (May 27, 1911.) Irwin, Will. Our Kind of People. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 17. (June 17, 1911.) Irwin, Will. The Foe Within. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 17. (July 1, 1911.) The Patent Medicine Conspiracy against the Freedom of the Press. Collier's Weekly, v. 36, p. 13. (Nov. 4, 1905.) Silencing the Press. Nation, v. 76, p. 4. (Jan. 1, 1903.) Stansell, C. V. Ethics of News Suppression. Nation, v. 96, p. 54. (Jan. 16, 1913.) A Real Case of Tainted News. Collier's Weekly, v. 53, p. 16. (June 6, 1914.) Seitz, Don C. The Honor of the Press. Harper's Weekly, v. 55, p. 11. (May 6, 1911.) Can the Wool Trust Gag the Press? Collier's Weekly, v. 46, p. 11. (March 18, 1911.) Holt, Hamilton. Commercialism and Journalism. 1909. 12. Editorial Policy and Influence Kemp, R. W. The Policy of the Paper. Bookman, v. 20, p. 310. (Dec. 1904.) Blake, Tiffany. The Editorial : Past, Present, and Future. Col- lier's Weekly, v. 48, p. 18. (Sept. 23, 1911.) The Editorial Yesterday and To-day. World's Work, v. 21, p. 14071. (March 1911.) Editorialene. Nation, v. 74, p. 459. (June 12, 1902.) Irwin, Will. The Unhealthy Alliance. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 17. (June 3, 1911.) Shackled Editor. Collier's Weekly, v. 51, p. 22. (April 12, 1913.) Fisher, Brooke. The Newspaper Industry. Atlantic Monthly, v. 89, p. 745. (June 1902.) Porritt, Edward. The Value of Political Editorials. Atlantic, v. 105, p. 62. (Jan. 1910.) Haste, R. A. Evolution of the Fourth Estate. Arena, v. 41, p. 348. (March 1909.) BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 We. Independent, v. 70, p. 1280. (Jan. 8, 1911) Bonaparte, Charles J. Government of Public Opinion. Forum, v. 40, p. 384. (Oct. 1908.) Ogden, Rollo. Journalism and Public Opinion. American Po- litical Science Review, Supplement, v. 7, p. 194. (Feb. 1913.) Williams, Talcott. The Press and Public Opinion. American Political Science Review, Supplement, v. 7, p. 201. (Feb. 1913.) 13. The Associated Press and the United Press Beach, H. L. Getting Out the News. Saturday Evening Post, v. 182, p. 18. (March 12, 1910.) Noyes, F. B. The Associated Press. North American Review, v. 197, p. 701. (May 1913.) Stone, Melville E. The Associated Press. Century, w. 69 and 70. (April to Aug. 1905.) Irwin,Will. What's Wrong with the Associated Press? Harper's Weekly, v. 58, p. 10. (March 28, 1914.) Is There a News Monopoly? Collier's Weekly, v. 53, p. 16. (June 6, 1914.) Stone, Melville E. The Associated Press: A Defense. Collier's Weekly, v. 53, p. 28. (July 11, 1914.) Mason, Gregory. The Associated Press: A Criticism. Out- look, v. 107, p. 237. (May 30, 1914.) Kennan, George. The Associated Press: A Defense. Outlook, v. 107, p. 240. (May 30, 1914.) The Associated Press as a Trust. Literary Digest, v. 48, p. 364. (Feb. 21, 1914.) The Associated Press Under Fire. Outlook, v. 106, p. 426. (Feb. 28, 1914.) Criticisms of the Associated Press. Outlook, v. 107, p. 631. (July 18, 1914.) Irwin, Will. The United Press. Harper's Weekly, v. 58, p. 6. (April 25, 1914.) Roy W. Howard, General Manager of the United Press. Amer- ican Magazine, v. 75, p. 41. (Nov. 1912.) Howard, Roy W. Government Regulation for Press Association in Thorpe's The Coming Newspaper, pp. 188-204. 1915. 286 BIBLIOGRAPHY 14. Ethics of Newspaper Advertising The Patent Medicine Conspiracy against the Freedom of the Press. Collier's Weekly, v. 36, p. 13. (Nov. 4, 1905.) Adams, Samuel Hopkins. The Great American Fraud. A series of articles in Collier's Weekly, w. 36 and 37. (Oct. 7, 1905, to Sept. 22, 1906.) Published as a book, with the same title, in 1906. Creel, George. The Press and Patent Medicines. Harper's Weekly, v. 60, p. 155. (Feb. 13, 1915.) Roberts, W. D. Pursued by Cardui. Harper's Weekly, v. 60, p. 175. (Feb. 20, 1915.) Waldo, Richard H. The Second Candle of Journalism, in Thorpe's The Coming Newspaper, pp. 248-261. 1915. Roosevelt, Theodore. Applied Ethics in Journalism. Outlook, v. 97, p. 807. (April 15, 1911.) The Lure of Fake Sales. Current Opinion, v. 56, p. 223. (March 1914.) Adams, Samuel Hopkins. Tricks of the Trade. Collier's Weekly, v. 48, p. 17. (Feb. 17, 1912.) Millions Lost in Fake Enterprises. Outlook, v. 100, p. 797. (April 13, 1912.) Brummer, F. J. The Home Newspaper and Others. Harper's Weekly, v. 58, p. 24. (Jan. 10, 1914.) Houston, H. S. New Morals in Advertising. World's Work, v. 28, p. 384. (Aug. 1914.) Stelze, Charles. Publicity Men in a Campaign for Clean Adver- tising. Outlook, v. 107, p. 589. (July 11, 1914.) 15. Dramatic Criticism Confessions of a Dramatic Critic. Independent, v. 60, p. 492. (March 1, 1906.) Armstrong, Paul, and Davis, Hartley. Manager vs. Critic. Everybody's Magazine, v. 21, p. 119. (July 1909.) Cudgeling the Dramatic Critics. Literary Digest, v. 48, p. 321. (Feb. 14, 1914.) Serious Declaration of War Against the Dramatic Critic. Cur- rent Opinion, v. 57, p. 328. (Nov. 1914.) Trials and Duties of a Dramatic Critic. Current Literature, v. 39, p. 428.! ( ct - 1905 -) BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 William Winter's Retirement. Independent, v. 67, p. 487. (Aug. 26, 1909.) The Newspaper and the Theatre. Outlook, v. 93, p. 12. (Sept. 4, 1909.) 1 6. Book-Reviewing in Newspapers Perry, Bliss. Literary Criticism in American Periodicals. Yale Review, v. 3, p. 635. (July 1914). Grocery-shop Criticism. Dial, v. 57, p. 5. (July 1, 1914.) Reviewing the Reviewer. Nation, v. 98, p. 288. (March 19, 1914.) Varieties of Book-Reviewing. Nation, v. 99, p. 8. (July 2, 1914.) Haines, Helen E. Present-Day Book-Reviewing. Independent, v. 69, p. 1104. (Nov. 17, 1910.) Benson, A. C. Ethics of Book-Reviewing. Putnam's, v. 1, p. 116. (Oct. 1906.) Matthews, Brander. Literary Criticism and Book-Reviewing, in Gateways to Literature, pp. 115-136. 1912. Woodward, W. E. Syndicate Service and Tainted Book-Re- views. Dial, v. 56, p. 173. (March 1, 1914.) Book-Reviewing a la Mode. Nation, v. 93, p. 139. (Aug. 17, 1911.) 17. Newspaper Style Journalistic Style. Independent, v. 64, p. 541. (March 5, 1908.) Newspaper English. Literary Digest, v. 47, p. 1229. (Dec. 20, 1913.) Scott, Fred Newton. The Undefended Gate. English Journal, v. 3, p. 1. (Jan. 1914.) Bradford, Gamaliel. Journalism and Permanence. North American Review, v. 202, pp. 239-241. (Aug. 1915.) Henry James on Newspaper English. Current Literature, v. 39, p. 155. (Aug. 1905.) Boynton, H. W. The Literary Aspect of Journalism. Atlantic Monthly, v. 93, p. 845. (June, 1904.) Perils of Punch. Nation, v. 100, p. 240. (March 4, 1915.) Mr. Hardy and Our Headlines. World's Work, v. 24, p. 385. (Aug. 1912.) Lowes, J. L. Headline English. Nation, v. 96, p. 179. (Feb. 20, 1913.) 288 BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 8. Newspapers and the Law Schofield, Henry. Freedom of the Press in the United States. Papers and Proceedings of the American Sociological So- ciety, v. 9, p. 67. 1914. Grasty, C. H. Reasonable Restrictions upon the Freedom of the Press and Discussion. Papers and Proceedings of the American Sociological Society, v. 9, p. 117. 1914. White, Isaac D. The Clubber in Journalism, in Thorpe's The Coming Newspaper, pp. 81-90. 1915. Bourne, Jonathan. The Newspaper Publicity Law. Review of Reviews, v. 47, p. 175. (Feb. 1913.) Newspapers Opposing Publicity. Literary Digest, v. 45, p. 607. (Oct. 12, 1912.) Smith, C. E. The Press: Its Liberty and License. Independent, v. 55, p. 1371. (June 11, 1903.) Garner, J. W. Trial by Newspapers. Journal of Criminal Law, v. 1, p. 849. (Mar. 1911.) Keedy, E. R. Third Degree and Trial by Newspapers. Journal of Criminal Law, v. 3, p. 502. (Nov. 1912.) Gilbert, S. Newspapers as Judiciary. American Journal of Sociology, v. 12, p. 289. (Nov. 1906.) O'Hara, Barratt. State License for Newspaper Men, in Thorpe's The Coming Newspaper, pp. 148-161. 1915. Lawrence, David. International Freedom of the Press Essen- tial to a Durable Peace. Annals of the American Academy, v. 72, p. 139. (July 1917.) 19. The Country Newspaper White, William Allen. The Country Newspaper. Harper's Magazine, v. 132, p. 887. (May 1916.) Tennal, Ralph. A Modern Type of Country Journalism, in Thorpe's The Coming Newspaper, pp. 112-147. 1915. Bing, P. C. The Country Weekly. 1917. 20. Newspapers of the Future Irwin, Will. The Voice of a Generation. Collier's Weekly, v. 47, p. 15. (July 29, 1911.) Low, A. Maurice. The Modern Newspaper as It Might Be. Yale Review, v. 2, p. 282. (Jan. 1913.) BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 Thorpe, Merle, editor. The Coming Newspaper, pp. 1-26. 1915. Munsey, Frank A. Journalism of the Future. Munsey Maga- zine, v. 28, p. 662. (Feb. 1903.) Ideal Newspaper. Current Literature, v. 48, p. 335. (March 1910.) Murray, W. H. An Endowed Press. Arena, v. 2, p. 553. (Oct. 1890.) Payne, W. M. An Endowed Newspaper, in Little Leaders, p. 178-185. 1902. Endowed Journalism. Literary Digest, v. 45, p. 303. (Aug. 24, 1912.) Holt, Hamilton. Plan for an Endowed Journal. Independent, v. 73, p. 299. (Aug. 12, 1912.) Taking the Endowed Newspaper Seriously. Current Literature, v. 53, p. 311. (Sept. 1912.) Municipal Newspaper, The. Independent, v. 71, p. 1342. (Dec. 14, 1911.) Municipal Newspapers. Survey, v. 26, p. 720. (Aug. 19, 1911.) Slosson, E. E. The Possibility of a University Newspaper. Independent, v. 72, p. 351. (Feb. 15, 1912.) NOTES ON THE WRITERS ROLLO OGDEN became a member of the editorial staff of the New York Evening Post in 1891, and has been editor of that paper since 1903. He edited the Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence Godkin, published in 1907. His article on "Some Aspects of Journalism" was published in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1906. OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD, whose article, entitled "Press Tendencies and Dangers," appeared in the Atlantic for January, 1918, is a son of the late Henry Villard, who owned the New York Evening Post and the Nation, and a grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, the great emancipator and editor of the Liberator. He succeeded his father as president of the New York Evening Post and of the Nation, to both of which he frequently contributes editorials and special articles. FRANCIS E. LEUPP was actively engaged in newspaper work for thirty years, from the time that he joined the staff of the New York Evening Post in 1874 until 1904. During half of that time, from 1889 to 1904, he was in charge of the Washington bureau of the Post. Since retiring from that position, he has been doing literary work. His article on "The Waning Power of the Press" was published in the Atlantic for February, 1910. H. L. MENCKEN was connected with Baltimore newspapers for nearly twenty years, part of the time as city editor and later as editor of the Baltimore Herald, and for the last twelve years as a member of the staff of the Baltimore Sun, from which he has recently severed his connection. He is now one of the editors of Smart Set. "Newspaper Morals" was printed in the Atlantic for March, 1914. RALPH PULITZER, who wrote his reply to Mr. Mencken's article for the Atlantic for June, 1914, is a son of the late Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He began newspaper work in 1900, and since 1911 has been presi- dent of the company that publishes the World. He takes an NOTES ON THE WRITERS 291 active part in the direction of the editorial and news policies of that paper. PROFESSOR EDWARD A. Ross has been an aggressive pioneer in the field of sociology in this country and has written many books on social problems. His study of the suppression of news, the results of which were published in the Atlantic for March, 1910, grew out of his interest hi the newspaper as a social force. HENRY WATTERSON, who takes issue with Professor Ross in his article on "The Personal Equation in Journalism," in the Atlantic for July, 1910, is the last of the great editorial leaders of Civil War days. For half a century his trenchant editorial com- ments in the Louisville Courier-Journal, of which he has been the editor since 1868, have been reprinted in newspapers all over the country. AN OBSERVER has seen much service as the Washington corres- pondent of an important newspaper. "The Problem of the Associated Press" was printed in the Atlantic for July, 1914. MELVILLE E. STONE, who defends the Associated Press, has been its general manager for twenty-five years. Previous to his connection with that organization he was associated with Victor F. Lawson in the establishment and development of the Chicago Daily News. He has written a number of articles on the work of the Associated Press. "PARACELSUS" sketches briefly his own career in journalism in his "Confessions of a Provincial Editor," published in the Atlantic for March, 1902. CHARLES MOREAU HARGER, as head of the department of journalism at the University of Kansas from 1905 to 1907, was one of the first college instructors of journalism in this country. At the same time he was editor of the Abilene (Kan.) Daily Reflector, which he has published for thirty years. "The Country Editor of To-day" is taken from the Atlantic for January, 1907, and "Journalism as a Career," from that for February, 1911. GEORGE W. ALGER, author of the article on "Sensational Journalism and the Law," in the Atlantic for February, 1903, has been engaged in the practice of law in New York City for many 292 NOTES ON THE WRITERS years. He has taken an active part in the framing of New York state laws protecting workers. Two books of his, Moral Over- strain, 1906, and The Old Law and the New Order, 1913, deal with the relation of the law to social, commercial, and indus- trial problems. RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD, although a lawyer, is best known to the reading public as the author of novels and short stories, many of which have been published in magazines. His article on "The Critic and the Law" appeared in the Atlantic for May, 1906. CHARLES MINER THOMPSON, editor-in-chief of Youth's Com- panion, has been a member of the staff of that periodical since 1890. Previous to that time he was literary editor of the Boston Advertiser. "Honest Literary Criticism" was published in the Atlantic for August, 1908. JAMES S. METCALFE has been dramatic editor of Life for nearly thirty years. In 1915 he established the Metcalfe dra- matic prize at Yale University, his alma mater. His article on "Dramatic Criticism in the American Press" appeared in the Atlantic for April, 1918. RALPH BERGENGREN has been cartoonist, art critic, dramatic critic, and editorial writer on various Boston newspapers, and is a frequent contributor to magazines. "The Humor of the Col- ored Supplement" is taken from \heAtlantic for August, 1906. JAMES H. COLLINS, whose article on "The American Grub Street" appeared in the Atlantic for November, 1906, is a New York publisher, best known as the writer of articles on business methods published in the Saturday Evening Post. OTHER ATLANTIC TEXTS FOR THE PROGRESSIVE TEACHER ESSAYS AND ESSAY WRITING Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by WILLIAM M. TANNER University of Texas. This book is a collection of about seventy-five short familiar es- says selected from the Contributors' Club of The Atlantic Monthly and specially edited for use in advanced high school work, as well as in college English. The selections, of about one thousand words each, are classified under five types of the familiar essay, each type- group preceded by a concise statement of its distinguishing character- istics. An introduction, with suggestions for study, specific questions, and a list of 250 suggestive titles for original essays, renders the volume unusually valuable as a textbook for classes in composition. It is the aim of Essays and Essay Writing to encourage the student in discovering his own ideas and in expressing his thought in as clear, personal, fresh, vigorous, and correct style as he can develop. An attempt is made to assist both student and teacher to get away from the rather trite, impersonal composition, or 'weekly theme'. Original- ity, clearness, simplicity, ease, and naturalness of expression are qualities emphasized throughout the book. Among the titles included in the Table of Contents are essays on such everyday subjects as 'The Saturday Night Bath', 'Furnace and I', 'The Daily Theme Eye', 'On Noses', and others, which readers of The Atlantic Monthly have particularly appreciated, and which both students and teachers have welcomed with new interest. For advanced High School and College Classes. Examination copies sent to teachers on request. $1.00, postpaid; school rate, 80 cents, carriage additional. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC. 41 MOUNT VERNON STREET, BOSTON ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, First Series Selected and Edited by CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, A.M. Head of the English Department, Newton (Mass.) High School, and Lecturer in the Harvard Summer School This book contains twenty-three short stories of unusual merit which have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. Chosen for their high literary value and for their freshness, modernity, and human interest, these stories are typical of the best work of John Galsworthy, Dallas Lore Sharp, Henry Seidel Canby, Katharine Fullerton Ger- ould, E. Nesbit, Margaret Prescott Montague, and other leading writers of England and America. Although a delightful book for the general reader, Atlantic Nar- ratives is published especially for use in college classes in English. In addition to acquainting students with the best in contemporary short stories, it will help them to compare and discuss intelligently the most eminent story-tellers, not of yesterday, but of to-day the men and women who are now writing for our better publications, and whose works must be included in any scheme of education in English which is not one-sided. The volume contains a general introduction, including a suggestive discussion of the modern short story, critical comments upon each story, and brief biographical notes. The editor has aimed to make, not a 'textbook' containing short stories, but a book of short stories so good that it will be used as a text. Examination copies sent to teachers on request. $1.00, postpaid; school rate, 80 cents, carriage additional. ATLANTIC NARRATIVES, Second Series in preparation Similar to Atlantic Narratives First Series, but intended for the use of younger students, this collection of Atlantic short stories is selected and edited for secondary schools. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC. 41 MOUNT VERNON STREET, BOSTON THE ATLANTIC CLASSICS SERIES Although both series of ATLANTIC CLASSICS are intended primarily for the general reader, both are being used with success in classes in American literature. These collections of Atlantic Monthly essays present the work of some of our best contemporary authors. The fact that these distinguished men and women are still writing, cannot fail to quicken the student's interest both in them and in the essays as subjects of study. \\'. ATLANTIC CLASSICS, First Series The sixteen essays in this volume include among others: 'Turtle Eggs for Agassiz' by Dallas Lore Sharp; 'A Father to his Freshman Son' by Edward Sanford Martin, 'Reminiscence with Postscript' by Owen Wister, 'The Provincial American' by Meredith Nicholson, 'The Street' by Simson Strunsky, 'A Confession in Prose' by Walter Prichard Eaton, and 'Our Lady Poverty' by Agnes Repplier. ATLANTIC CLASSICS, Second Series Among the essays contained in this collection are 'Every Man's Natural Desire to be Somebody Else' by Samuel McChord Crothers, 'The Devil Baby at Hull House' by Jane Addams, 'The Greek Genius' by John Jay Chapman, 'Haunted Lives' by Laura Spencer Portor, 'Jungle Night' by William Beebe, and others of equal interest to the general reader and to the young student. Suitable for College and advanced High School classes. Examination copies of either book sent to teachers on request. Each $1.25, postpaid; school rate, 83 cents, carriage additional. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC. 41 MOUNT VERNON STREET, BOSTON 3" - - <^*^ \ ~& , . J7. / -A^ /O^r^U-JLZs'L^C 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DBSK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. rrM$ I/, LD 2lA-40m-ll '63 (El602slO)476B . General Library University of California Berkeley 02228