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Title: The Profession of Journalism - A Collection of Articles on Newspaper Editing and - Publishing, taken from the Atlantic Monthly
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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 Barrès_ and Others $1.00
PAN-GERMANY: THE DISEASE AND CURE. By _André Chéradame_ $ .35
THE ASSAULT ON HUMANISM. By _Paul Shorey_ $1.00
SHOCK AT THE FRONT. By _William 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_
[Illustration]
The Atlantic Monthly Press
BOSTON
_Copyright, 1918, by_
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
The purpose of this book is to bring together in convenient 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 newspaper 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
Appendix.
For permission to reprint the articles the editor is indebted to the
writers and to the editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_.
W. G. B.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN,
January 12, 1918.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION. _Willard Grosvenor Bleyer_ ix
SOME ASPECTS OF JOURNALISM. _Rollo Ogden_ 1
PRESS TENDENCIES AND DANGERS. _Oswald Garrison Villard_ 20
THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS. _Francis E. Leupp_ 30
NEWSPAPER MORALS. _H. L. Mencken_ 52
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
I
“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 current
events and issues. Again, for the average citizen the newspaper is
almost the only medium for the interpretation and discussion of
questions of the day. The composite of individual opinions, which we
call public opinion, must express itself in action to be effective. The
newspaper, with its daily reiteration, is the most powerful force in
urging citizens to act in accordance with their convictions. 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 opinions are affected by the newspaper they read.
Nevertheless, 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 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 character of our
democracy, does he appreciate the full significance 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 standards. The world
war has put to the test, not only men and machinery, but every
institution of society. Of each organized activity we ask, Is it serving
most effectively the common good? Not simply service to the state, but
service 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 newspaper, 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 voluminous 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 mélange 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 primary 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, nevertheless 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 by means of
editorial interpretation and discussion, to render articulate the best
public sentiment, and to persuade citizens to act in accordance with
their opinions, constitute an important secondary function of the
newspaper. 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 peculiarly important
services to the public. First, they can show the relation of state,
national, and international questions 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 newspaper 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
and money to advice and entertainment deserves careful consideration.
That without such consideration these features may encroach
unjustifiably on news and editorials seems evident.
III
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 significant to
newspaper readers in their relation to the community, 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 their 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 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 entertainment 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 average 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 primarily,
to the subordination of their true significance. To substitute the _hors
d’œuvres_, 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 accurate 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 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
may be recognized by most readers, yet the effect is harmful. “It’s only
a newspaper story,” expresses the all-too-common attitude of a public
whose confidence in 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 the 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
judgments 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.
V
The so-called “yellow journals” are glaring examples of newspapers built
up on news and editorial policies shaped to attract undiscriminating
readers by sensational methods. By constantly emphasizing sensational
news and by “sensationalizing” 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 outstrip 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 population while they are in the process of becoming
Americanized 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
The treatment of sensational events, particularly those involving crime
and scandal, undoubtedly constitutes one of the difficult problems of
all newspapers. The demoralizing 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 suppressed news of crime and vice, citizens
might remain ignorant of the extent to which they existed in the
community, 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 furnish readers with the
information to which they are entitled, 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.
VII
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
immeasurably 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 blazing 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 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 opinions on the basis of the news and
editorials furnished them by their favorite paper. This greater
independence of judgment, 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 population, has been reflected in the news
policies of many papers. By “playing up” news that tends to the
upbuilding of the community, and by “playing down,” and even eliminating
entirely, news that tends to exert an unwholesome 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 newspapers 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 constructive purpose of showing how various
agencies may be used for community development. “Searchlight” journalism
is thus giving way to “sunlight” journalism. A constructive 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 coöperation
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 condition
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.
X
How the future will solve the problems of journalism must be largely a
matter of conjecture. Temporarily the 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
discussion 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 resulting from the dissemination
throughout the world of “colored” news by means of semi-official news
agencies subsidized 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 important 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
pointed 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 disappear entirely. This increase in price has not
appreciably 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 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 government.
Effective organization of newspaper writers and editors has been urged
as a means of establishing definite standards for the profession. It
seems remarkable that in this age of organization newspaper workers are
the only members of a great profession who have no national association.
Newspaper publishers, circulation managers, advertising 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 national
association has not as yet made much progress.
Two national newspaper conferences have been held under academic
auspices to discuss the problems of journalism, 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 demonstrated 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 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 maintains
“branches” and “district councils” in addition to the national
association; and the Society of Women Journalists.
XI
There is no one simple solution for the complex problems 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. “Service,” the new watchword in business, is already
being taken up by the business departments of newspapers in relation to
both advertisers and readers. The rejection of objectionable advertising
and the guaranteeing of all advertising published have been among the
first steps taken toward serving both readers and honest business men by
protecting 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 completeness 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 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
formulated and whatever code is adopted for the profession of journalism
will be based on the fundamental idea of service to the people—to the
masses as well as to the classes.
Newspaper workers, from the “cub” reporter to the editor-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 necessity 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
I
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 horrible
example, a target for reproof, but still an interesting object. That
last is the redeeming feature. If the newspaper of to-day 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 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 natural 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
exempt? It is as freely asserted that colleges are commercialized; 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 rich. 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 admitted to exist. There are
undoubtedly some editors who bend their conscience to their dealing.
Newspaper proprietors exist who sell themselves for gain. But this is
not what is ordinarily meant by the charge of commercialization.
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 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 business 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 conduct 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 designate 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 property, to be administered with skill; it is a carefully
planned organization which best produces the effect when the
personalities 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.
Large capital in newspapers, and their heightened earning power, tend to
steady them. Freaks and rash experiments are also shut out by lack of
means. Greeley reckoned 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 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
responsibility 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 fearful one. But it is not solely
his. The basest and most demoralizing 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
patrons 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 trivial, 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 protests 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 persuaded, 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
reaction of the medium upon the instrument. Legislation direct 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’était horrible,” said Thiers; “mais, pour moi,
j’aime mieux être gouverné par des honnêtes gens qu’on traite comme des
voleurs, que par des voleurs qu’on traite en honnêtes gens.”[1] 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 business 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, 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 shelter 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.
Footnote 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.
II
It is, no doubt, a belief in this honestly and wholesomely 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
emancipation 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 representatives in Parliament, but how much would that add to
their education? They might even discover the opinions of the editor.
All this was very interesting, but it did not carry real instruction to
the mind. To talk about a tax on newspapers being a tax on knowledge was
a prostitution 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 England 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 conductors of our journals may
regard themselves as under a great responsibility, as men engaged in the
great work of instructing 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 perplexities 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 intellectually alert,”
he yet noted several literary and moral defects. Of these he dwelt first
upon “hasty production.” “Formerly, 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
narrow and cramping conditions of time. The hour of going 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
touchwood, 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 métier_. 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 endlessly; the genius may brood; but the newspaper man
must cut short his search for the full thought or the perfect 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 compromises, 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 atmosphere in the office of a daily
newspaper. But the result is 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 _Middlemarch_ 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 between 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, confessions are too numerous about the easy and empty
assumptions 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 instinct precisely
is,’ Rob said, ‘and still less whether I possess 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 was soon on fire; much sympathy is expressed
with the sufferers. 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 excellence, 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 examination, ‘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
without a pause. My only difficulty is when I happen to know something
of the subject.” But no one takes these sarcasms too seriously. They are
a part of the Bohemian 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 _École des Journalistes_,
happily exposed the “assumption that good leading articles ever were or
ever could be produced over punch and broiled bones, amidst intoxication
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-learning,” 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 irrevocably 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 indulgence 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.
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 mediæval 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.
III
It is, however, what Sir Wemyss Reid called the “Wegotism” of the press
that some fastidious souls find more offensive than its occasional
betrayals of crass ignorance. Lecky remarked upon it, in his chapters on
the rise of newspapers in England. “Few things to a reflecting mind are
more curious than the extraordinary weight which is attached to the
anonymous expression of political opinion. Partly by the illusion of the
imagination, partly by the weight of emphatic assertion, a plural
pronoun, conspicuous 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 individual 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
discussion 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 editors 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. Bettesworth, I was in my youth acquainted with great
lawyers 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 impossible to dissect out the
separate personalities which contribute 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 personality 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 rôle of the individual in modern journalism: “The line it [the
London _Times_] takes on any particular question is much more a matter
of accident than is supposed. It is sometimes better than the public,
and sometimes worse. It was better on the Competitive 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.”
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 doubtful 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 occupation.
Journalism, wrote Mrs. Mark Pattison in 1879, “harms 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 highest 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,
timeserving, 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. 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 unprincipled 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 scoundrel has actually got possession of the highest
court in the State, and dares the Christian public to expose his
villainy.
“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 possession of
the courts, and if he can silence the press also, where is reform to
come from?... I think some movement ought to be set on foot having
for its object the hunting down of corrupt politicians, the exposure
of jobs, the sharpening of the public conscience on the whole
subject of political purity. If this cannot be done, the growing
wealth will kill—not the nation, but the form of government 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
obedience to the drift toward consolidation which has been as marked in
journalism as in other spheres of business activity—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 consolidations in New
York and Boston before long; at least conditions are ripe for them.
Chicago has now only four morning 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 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 newspaper, 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,
advertising, 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 political 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 development has gone
even further, for here are some sizable cities with no morning newspaper
and but one in the evening 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 account for the
disappearance of certain newspapers. Many of them have deserved to
perish because they were inefficiently managed or improperly edited. The
_Boston Transcript_ declares that the reason for the _Journal’s_ demise
was lack “of that singleness and clearness of direction and purpose
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, vigorous
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 newspapers 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 enormously
increased costs and this tendency to monopoly, may prevent people who
are actuated by passion and sentiment 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 reforms if they cannot
have a press of their own, as the Abolitionists 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 fall by the wayside. The large sums
necessary to establish 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 conditions 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 editorial courage
and ability; William Allen White has demonstrated 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 shrinkage
during the last three years in the weeklies, semi-weeklies,
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 government 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 increasing 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.
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 popularly 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.[2] When Mr. Munsey buys another daily, 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.
Footnote 2:
Mr. Hearst acquired the _Boston Advertiser_ in November 1917, shortly
after this article was written.-ED.
In Michigan the Booth Brothers control six clean, independent 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 managers in close alliance with other men in great business
enterprises,—the chamber of commerce, the merchants’ association
group,—and therefore wholly detached from the aspirations of the plain
people.
Those who feel thus will be disturbed by another remarkable
consolidation in the field of newspaper-making—the recent absorption of
a large portion of the business of the 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—“patent insides” is a more familiar
term. The Western Newspaper Union to-day furnishes plate matter to
nearly fourteen 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 concerns. 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 advertisement? 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 least, it
would seem as if our law-makers, already so critical of the press, might
be tempted to declare the Union a public-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 complaint 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 business, it will be
to the public advantage, that is, if honest, uncolored news is a
desideratum. This will give to the Associated Press—the only press
association which is altogether coöperative 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 Reuter’s, the Havas Agency in France, the Wolf Agency in Germany,
and others, including the official Russian agency. Where these are not
frankly official agencies, they are the creatures of their governments
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 international
hatreds. A free press after the war is as badly needed as freedom of the
seas and freedom from conscienceless 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 dissatisfaction with the metropolitan press
in every reform camp and among the plain people. It has grown
tremendously because the masses are, rightly or wrongly, convinced that
the newspapers with heavy capital investments 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 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 gradually 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. Meanwhile, on the business side we drift toward consolidation on
a resistless economic current, which foams past numberless rocks, and
leads no man knows whither.
THE WANING POWER OF THE PRESS
BY FRANCIS E. LEUPP
I
After the last ballot had been cast and counted in 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.[3] The comments of the
mayor-elect, although not ill-tempered, led up to the conclusion that in
our common-sense generation nobody cares what the newspapers say.
Footnote 3:
The conditions here referred to in the election of Mayor Gaynor in
1909 were almost duplicated in 1917, when Mayor Mitchel was defeated
for reëlection, although all the New York newspapers, except the two
Hearst papers and the Socialist daily, supported him.—ED.
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 particular features
it accentuates, and its method of presenting 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
influence 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 committed may for years thereafter go begging in vain
for a tenant, does not mean that a whole cityful of fairly intelligent
people are victims of the ghost obsession; but it does mean that no
person enjoys being reminded of midnight 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 public 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
interplay 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 why so many of its leading writers to-day
find reason to deplore the altered attitude of the people 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 properties and policies from personal to
impersonal control; the rise of the cheap magazine; the tendency to
specialization 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 newspaper offices by the universal mania of hurry;
the development 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 sensational 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 abstractions 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. Indeed, their
very foibles sometimes furnished our best exegetical key to their
writings.
When a politician whom Bryant had criticised threatened 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, everybody 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 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
responsible, commands more respect from the mass of his fellows than one
who shields himself behind a rampart of anonymity, 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 satisfactory 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 compensating them for the hazards they
faced.
These newcomers were not idealists, like the founders and managers of
most of the important journals of an earlier period. They were men of
keen commercial instincts, 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. Principles? 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 advertising patronage increased. More circulation can be
secured 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 government 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 involving
also an increase of cost, and each additional outlay bringing fresh
returns. In such a race for business 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
capitalists’ plans to promote, and powerful advertisers to conciliate by
emphasizing this subject or discreetly ignoring 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 preachments. Mr. Hearst, the high priest of
sensational journalism, though not exploiting his own authority in the
same way, has always taken pains to advertise the individual 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. From being what its title
indicates, a place of storage for articles believed to have some
permanent value, the magazine began to take on a new character about
twenty years ago. While preserving its distinct identity and its
originality, 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 recognized as
constituting a limited but highly specialized profession. 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 business 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 compliment. 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 infallibility of one of these prophets of the
magazine world, the common multitude wasted no thought on the merits of
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 pronouncement 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 archæology, 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 astronomer 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 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 the conflicting claims of Commander Peary and Dr. Cook
as the original discoverer of the North Pole. One newspaper 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 contributor 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 of priority in a
scientific discovery threatened to end as a wrangle over a newspaper
“beat.”
Then, too, we must reckon with the progressive acceleration 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 newspaper? 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, or professional
statisticians, or analytic philosophers, but for the public; and what
the public wants is, not dry particulars, 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
correction 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, 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, unqualified, or the blue pencil
slashes remorselessly through his “it is suspected,” or “according to a
rumor which cannot 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.
III
Nowhere is the change more patent than in the department 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 responsibility 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
occasionally 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 newspaper 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 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 managers had bowed to the hustling humor of the age. They no
longer cared to serve journalistic viands, which required deliberate
mastication, to patrons who clamored for a quick lunch. So they passed
on to their representatives at a distance the same injunction they were
incessantly 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 correspondent’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. Doubtless
this conduces to a more perfect administrative coördination 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 somewhat at variance with that
expressed on the editorial page of the same paper; but each party to
this disagreement 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 régime 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 conscience 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 advisement 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 revealed to
me in confidence that the paper had been unsuccessfully seeking some
advertising controlled by his friend, and that the publisher had offered
him one thousand dollars for a series of articles—anonymous, if he
preferred—exposing the private weaknesses of the eminent man, and giving
full names, dates, and other particulars 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. “Technically 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 denunciation 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
honorable 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. Possibly 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
newspapers, 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 daughter into her intimate
companionships. The newspaper, therefore, which keeps the family in
touch with the outside 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. Unfortunately, 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 respectability 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. 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_. Visiting 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 explanation 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 presence 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 reading 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 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 appreciate
normal information normally conveyed?
Professor Münsterberg 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 headlines, 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 certainly 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 vulgarity which taints, that product. But there is another element
in the community which has not his well-sharpened 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 resultant
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 sensitive 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 to be observed between initiative and support in comparing
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 constructive 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.
NEWSPAPER MORALS
BY H. L. MENCKEN
I
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 interesting, 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 Brunetière, 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—ferocity?”
“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 somebody 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 doesn’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 especially of American. You
must give a good show to get a crowd, and a good show means one with
slaughter in it.”
Destiny soon robbed me of my critical shroud, and I fell into a long
succession of less æsthetic newspaper berths, from that of police
reporter to that of managing editor, but always the advice of my ancient
counselor kept turning 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 Iokanaan 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
government in exactly the same gothic, melodramatic way. Always their
first aim was to find a concrete target, to visualize 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
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 capacity 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 retribution. 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 sagacious
journalist to foster that sense of personal participation. 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 been gained, true enough, he may take all the credit
without a blush; but while the fight is going on he always pretends 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 newspaper 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 convert 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 attitude 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 special
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 understanding. Whenever the public journals presume
to illuminate 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 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 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 complex 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 follow 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 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 popular sport rather than to
the science of government; the impulse behind them is always far more
orgiastic than reflective. 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 theorists, 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 unemotionally—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
superintendents, to money barons, to white-slave traders, to un-sedulous
chiefs of police. But their first choice is the boss.
In assaulting bosses, however, a newspaper must look carefully to its
ammunition, and to the order and interrelation 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
appetite. 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 installment 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 excitement, 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 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 disgraced clergyman, his
interest in it is almost purely a sporting 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 reformer quickly
loses his public. His usual fate, indeed, is 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 underwriters
of political enterprise, and the newspapers influenced 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 doesn’t care who that victim may be. How easy to convince 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 election 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, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, New Orleans,
Baltimore, San Francisco, St. Paul, Kansas City. Every one of these
places has had its melodramatic reform campaigns and its inevitable
reactions. The people have leaped to the overthrow of bosses, and then
wearied of the ensuing tedium. A perfectly 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
business 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-fé_. Mayor Blankenberg, unless I am the worst
prophet unhung, will meet with an overwhelming defeat in 1915.[4] 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 cartridge, 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.
Footnote 4:
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.
II
Such is the ebb and flow of emotion in the popular heart—or perhaps, if
we would be more accurate, the popular 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 control of impulse by an ideational process, the subordination 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 accomplish
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 prejudices, 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 reputation, 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 irrelevant.
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 remember the public’s incapacity for taking in
more than one thing at a time, and on the other hand, he must remember
its disposition to be swayed by mere feeling, and its habit of founding
that feeling upon general and indefinite 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 confidence to doubt
on the instant; if its general attitude toward a man is sympathetic,
that sympathy is likely to survive 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 innocence—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 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 indignation 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 violation 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—pilgrimages 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 bombarded a long while before it was assaulted. He
was pursued with insinuations and innuendoes; various persons, 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 newspaper 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 newspaper’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
unashamed, and so did Webster, Clay, and Henry. What is more, these men
practiced it with frank allowance for the naïveté of the people they
presumed to lead. It was Lincoln’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 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 insincerely,
unintelligently, with no thought save for the show itself? I doubt it.
The effect of their long and melodramatic 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 humblest 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 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 agitation 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 palpable 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 proportion 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 indifference to the evils
but yesterday so furiously fought.
Mr. Mencken’s fallacies are: the supercilious assumption that these
weaknesses are not matters of human temperament running up and down
through a certain proportion 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
argument 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 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
magnificently 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 mysterious 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 contains 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 discover 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 rightness are
assumed to be the normal condition of men and women and things in
general, it does not seem either extraordinary or culpable 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 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
opponent ... 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 opposite
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 particularize virtuously? Nor does it
require merely moral or physical courage to reduce the safely general to
the disagreeably 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 educated and reflective minority of citizens, but to
the ignorant 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 number 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 reflective “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
unreflective 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 subject, save perhaps
baseball, on which the average American newspaper discourses with
unfailing sense and understanding,” 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 discuss, 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 fastidious 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 transportation facilities, or the punishment of
public or private criminals, or the control of public-service
corporations, or the 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 unintelligible
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 transportation 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
populations, 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 conditions; 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 community than an
exclusively scientific, wholly unsympathetic 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 hypotheses into living
questions, to make the educated and the ignorant alike feel that public
questions should interest and stir all good citizens and not merely
engross social philosophers and political theorists.
But here let me avoid joining Mr. Mencken in the pitfall of
generalizations, by drawing a sharp distinction between 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 diligently avoided by
the _mob_.” If Mr. Mencken only included 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
abstract,” “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 politics. 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 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, civilization 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
legislation, 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 sporting 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
naïve man who takes his melodrama seriously, who believes robustly in
blacks and whites without 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 sophistication and attendant
cynicism, to whom such campaigns 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” nothing 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, supplies 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 “earnest seekers
after truth” busily engaged in sacrificing ballots 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
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 culture. To the latter the fact that some
monopoly-breeding, law-defying, legislation-bribing, railroad-wrecking
gentleman is kind to his fellow citizens by donating to them picture
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 newspaper as a “mob-master,” that these methods are
exclusively 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, clergyman, 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
leading the vulgar in itself does no discredit to its practitioner.
Lincoln practised it unashamed, and so did Webster, 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 newspaper 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
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.”
Why, then, sweepingly reflect on the morals of the press, if by
humanizing abstract principles, by emotionalizing academic doctrines, by
personifying general theories, it 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 peccadilloes 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 Camorra of
Utopian and dehumanized reformers.”
THE SUPPRESSION OF IMPORTANT NEWS
BY EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS
I
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 common 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 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 mammoth 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 newspaper. 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 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 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 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 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. “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 commercialization of the press.”
The significance of it is apparent when you consider the second economic
development, namely, the growth of newspaper advertising. The
dissemination of news and the purveying of publicity are two essentially
distinct functions, which, for the sake of convenience, are carried on
by the same agency. The one appeals to subscribers, the other 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 purveying of publicity is becoming the main concern
of the newspaper, 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 receipts, 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
support 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 impressive 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
alertness 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 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 advertising. 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 companies. But now the gas people
advertise, “Cook with gas,” the electric people urge you to put your
sewing-machine on their current, and the railroads spill oceans of ink
to attract settlers or tourists. The banks and trust companies 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 personality, which may be bought and sold
like a hotel or mill, it may come into the hands of those who will hold
it in bondage 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 instrument for coloring certain kinds of
news, diffusing certain misinformation, or fostering certain impressions
or prejudices 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 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 together 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 pipeline stock, a tenderness for these collateral
interests is likely to affect the news columns.
III
That in consequence of its commercialization, and its frequent
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 edition
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
published no account of the trial, which lasted a week and disclosed
highly sensational matter. Only the German papers sent reporters to the
trial and published the proceedings.
In a great jobbing centre, one of the most prominent cases of the United
States District Attorney was the prosecution 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 involved teamsters on the one hand
and the department stores and the mail-order houses on the other, the
employers had plotted to provoke the strikers to violence by sending 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 policemen 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 restrained
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
responsible lawyer to three newspaper men, each of whom accepted it as
true and promised to print it. The account never appeared.
In another city the sales-girls in the big shops had to 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 contracts, 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 industry 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 violation 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
induced to threaten the paper with the withdrawal of his advertising. No
further reports of the revelations appeared.
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. Forthwith appeared, in a yellow journal
professing warm friendship 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
policemen would ride beside the non-union drivers of hearses. Another,
under the misleading headline, “Two Funerals stopped by Striking
Cabmen,” described harmless colloquies between hearse-drivers and
pickets. This was followed 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 Haywood
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 argument, said
that ‘if the jury hangs Bill Haywood, 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 policeman, 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 mouthpieces of the
financial powers came out very clearly during 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 resumption
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 Offered; only Ten apply.” It stated that the
Commissioner of Public Works of Detroit, misled by reports of dire
distress, set afoot a public work which called for five thousand men.
Only ten men applied for work, and all these expected 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 newspaper 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.”
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 shippers’ 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 railroads,
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 exclusion. Subsequently, when the attorney filed charges with the
governor against the commission, one editor wrote an editorial stating
the facts and criticising the commissioners. 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 company’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 entrance
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 superintending 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, as by law it should be,
he thought it was an ordinary communication, 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 newspaper 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 advance 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 headlines, “Many Poisoned at Single-Tax Banquet,” told in
detail how a large number of banqueters had been ptomaine-poisoned. The
conference had formulated a single-tax amendment to the state
constitution, which they intended 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 “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 himself, 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 literati, the intellectuals, the social settlements, and the
universities.
Now and then, to be sure, in some betrayed and misgoverned 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
counteract 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 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.
V
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 dailies, less to spread their ideas than to
print what the capitalistic dailies would stifle. Civic associations,
municipal voters’ leagues, and legislative voters’ leagues, are
circulating 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 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 franking
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
hopes 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 momentous 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 moment came when it was
seen that private schools, loan libraries, commercial parks, baths,
gymnasia, athletic grounds, and playgrounds would not answer, so the
moment 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
purposes in this country, it is safe to predict that, if the usefulness
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 coöptation, it would eventually be packed with “safe” men, who
would see to it that the newspaper was run in a “conservative” 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 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 association, the medical association, the ministers’ union,
the degree-granting faculties, the federated teachers, the central labor
union, the chamber of commerce, the associated charities, the public
libraries, the non-partisan citizens’ associations, the improvement
leagues, and the social settlements. In this way the endowment would
rest ultimately on the chief apexes of moral and intellectual worth in
the city.
While giving, with headline, cut, and cartoon, the interesting
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 trousseau 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, lecturers, 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, to 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 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
I
The daily newspaper, under modern conditions, embraces 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 framing 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
ceaseless 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 editor of the morning
newspaper turns night into day. When others sleep he must be awake and
astir. His is the only vocation where versatility is not a hindrance or
a diversion; where the conventional is not imposed upon his personality.
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 riffraff 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 requirements of the
primitive newspaper. An editor, a printer, and a printer’s devil, were
all-sufficient. For half a century 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 Boston, 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 certain
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 acquired 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 happened: the building was still
there, the force within apparently engaged in its customary activities.
Mr. Swain looked leisurely about him, and turning upon his now expectant
but thoroughly puzzled fellow townsman, he said,—
“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. Prentice, 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
Richmond 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 bygone 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 combat, 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
commit their thoughts to print where their names are affixed. Ambition
and vanity, as well as discretion, play a restraining part here; they
play it, even though there be no provocation 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, holding 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 journalism 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 majordomo to Mr. Buchanan until Buchanan, becoming President,
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.
III
The new school of journalism, sometimes called impersonal 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 characteristics to controlling ownership—a union which in the
first place created the personal journalism of other days.
Here, however, the absence of personality is more apparent 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 speaking 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
exhausted 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, abandoning 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
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 immediate 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 following 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 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 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 requirement 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 because 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 without
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 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 interested. 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 “amusement 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 influential newspaper who had prostituted himself and
his calling escaped the stripes of a convict only through executive
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 résumé. 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.
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. Pretending to be the defender of liberty,
it too often is the assailant 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 suppress that which may be too vile to tell.
In a recent article Mr. Victor Rosewater, the accomplished 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 emanations 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 subaltern, 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 prosperity of the community in which it is published. The newspaper
selfishly prefers business prosperity to business adversity. A panic is
largely psychological, and the newspapers can do much to aggravate or to
mitigate its severity. 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 revolving, and this is
the first time I have seen them condemned for suppressing ‘important
news’ of business calamity and industrial distress in subservience to a
worship 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, because 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
propaganda 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 bottom, must have readers to make its
advertising space 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 dominating
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
“discrimination.” 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 statesmanship; and this is as likely
to proceed from the counting-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, commercial system; and it must be allowed that, in
both dignity and usefulness, the English is to be preferred to the
French journalism. It is true that English publishers are sometimes
elevated to the peerage. But this is nowise 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,
because journalism and office are so antipathetic that their union must
be destructive to both.
The upright man of business, circumspect in his everyday 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 qualities 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 preëminent manhood must be fulfilled by the
newspaper which aspires to preëminence. 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 community? Hence it is that special college training is
beginning 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 dividends than in the newspaper business.
V
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 function 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 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 decency pays, that good sense and good faith are good
investments, 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 rôle 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 ambitions 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 ministration—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
I
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. Capitalism 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 population 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 interest 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 Department of Justice in Washington.[5]
Footnote 5:
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.
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 practical
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 unassisted competition between, say, six newspapers in the
same city or district would be about as feasible economically as
unlimited competition between six railway lines running from Boston to
New York. The need for a common service of foreign and national news
must therefore be admitted. To supply such a service, even in these days
of especially cheap telegraph and cable rates for press matter, 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.
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, probably, about 20,000,000 copies a day.
The Associated Press is the child of the first effort at coöperative
news-gathering ever made. Back in the forties 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
supplied at that time in return for a certain sum, the newspapers
undertaking on their part to act as the local correspondents of the
Association. A reciprocal arrangement with Reuter’s, the great European
agency, followed, whereby it supplied the Associated Press with its
foreign service, and the Associated Press gave to Reuter’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 competition 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 newspapers sprang up and were kept in the cold by
their established 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. Reuter’s agency continued 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
Reuter’s, carried the war into the United Press territory,—the South and
the country east of the Alleghanies,—got a number of New York newspapers
to join it, and effected a national organization.
II
That national organization is, to all intents and purposes, the
Associated Press of to-day. The only really important change has been in
its transference as a company from the jurisdiction of Illinois to that
of New York. This change was accomplished in 1900, owing to an adverse
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 engage 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 newspapers, 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, according 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
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
comprehensively than any single newspaper can do. Its foreign service is
ubiquitous. It no longer depends upon its arrangement with Reuter’s, 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
headquarters in London, Paris, and other European capitals, Peking,
Tokyo, Mexico, and Havana, and with scores of correspondents 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.[6]
To share 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 assent 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,[7] 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.
Footnote 6:
In the appraisal of the estate of Joseph Pulitzer in 1914, the two
Associated 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.
Footnote 7:
This is an error which is corrected in Mr. Stone’s reply, cf. p. 124.
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 circulation. 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 valuable 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 coöperative basis.
III
The tremendous importance of the question of the fairness 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 question 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 plutocratic 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 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 partisanship, and especially
political partisanship, would be impossible 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 successful newspaper publishers in their
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 powerful organs of the country are
conservative), their aggregate influence tends to be on the side of
conservatism.
The tendency, too, is enhanced by the articles under which the
Associated Press is incorporated. There is special provision against
fault-finding on the part of members. The corporation is given the right
to expel a member “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 corporation 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 respectable. 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
corporation. 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 protest 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 members; 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 coöperative 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
partiality. To organize the Associated Press on the same lines would, of
course, entail hardship to its present constituents. 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 empirical. 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 coöperative or
commercial press agencies. Equal competition among a number of
coöperative associations would, for reasons already explained, mean
comparatively ineffective and weak services. Competition among
commercial agencies would have even less to recommend it. The latter
must by their nature be more susceptible to special influences than the
coöperative agency. They are controlled by a few business men, not by
their customers. Competing 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 coöperative 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 immune
from such influences, the public should, the writer believes, think
twice before demanding its destruction, instead of its alteration to
conform with the modern conception 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,
1914._]
An article under the title, “The Problem of The Associated 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 newspapers 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 existing Associated
Press resulted. The assertion that a “franchise to a newspaper in New
York or Chicago is worth 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 Monitor_
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
_Worcester Spy_, _St. Paul Globe_, _Minneapolis Times_, _Denver
Republican_, _San Francisco Call_, _New Orleans Picayune_, _Indianapolis
Sentinel_, and _Philadelphia Times_, as well as many others.
The statement that the Press Association of England is an unlimited
coöperative 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 capitalization. It
sells news to newspapers, clubs, hotels, and newsrooms. It is not, as is
the Associated Press, a clearing-house for the exchange of news. It
gathers all its information 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 association of reporters. The business in any case may be
confined 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
cannot 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 publication. 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
copyright. 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 seeking it. Such
is the state of the law to-day.
And the English courts go further and uniformly hold that news telegrams
may not be pirated, even after publication. 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, abbreviate 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 Associated Press
service. The cases of alleged bias he cites are unfortunate. Any claim
that the doings of the Progressives in 1912 were “blanketed” by the
Associated Press is certainly unwarranted. Our records show that the
organization reported more than three times as many words concerning 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
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 frequently 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 less unfair, some
arrangement could presumably be made for government restraint.” Since
the battle against government control of the press was fought nearly two
centuries ago, it seems scarcely worth while to waste much effort over
this suggestion. Censorship by the king’s agents was the finest flower
of mediæval tyranny. It is hard to believe that anyone, in this hour,
should suggest a return to it.
Under the closely censored method of this coöperative organization,
notwithstanding the wide range of its operations, 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
aggregate. 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
sometimes actual, of countless small monopolies.” In reply, it may be
said that we are in no danger of a dearth of newspapers. 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 discontinued, 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 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 newspapers 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 therefore 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 getting 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 Associated Press.
It will be agreed at once that private right must ever give way to
public good. If it can be shown that, as contended, the national welfare
requires that those who, without any advantage over their fellow
editors, have built up an efficient coöperative 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 urged as it has been, is
certainly flattering to the membership 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 render 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
Associated 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 one seller and an unlimited
number of buyers. Then, indeed, there would be a monopoly of the worst
sort. And government censorship, 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 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 organization, 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 honest, 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 bequest 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 banquets,
garnished with florid rhetoric; it is still heard from old-fashioned
pulpits; it cannot die, even though the conditions which made the phrase
possible have passed away.
The pooh-poohing of the elders, the scoffing of the experienced, 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 untrammeled
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 conditioning 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 daily disdained its inheritance,
and subordinated the expression 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 because 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,
somewhat 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
I chose newspaper work in my native city, Pittsburg, mainly because I
liked to write. I went into it after my 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 commercial 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, believed 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 faith I intended to
follow, went back to my town armed with the letters, and talked it over.
They had been considering 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 bargain. 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 linotypes, 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 matter over with my new friends and future associates,
I convinced 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 the business management of the paper), and were I
insistent, 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 underhandedly
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 elephants, 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 process was gradual, but I have not the excuse
that it was unconscious. There is the sting in the matter. I can
scarcely plead ignorance.
Somewhere in a scrapbook, even now beginning to yellow, I have pasted,
that it may not escape me (as if it could!), my first editorial
announcing to the good world my 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 gathering 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. Independent 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 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’” underclothing 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’ll 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 “widow 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. 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 isn’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 advertising; 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 experience 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 answer. But I don’t,—not if
an advertiser requests otherwise. 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 to
enter my field. I could not hope to rival their telegraphic 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
assassinations of the Shah, but they were intensely interested in
pinochle parties in the seventh ward. I gave them pinochle 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 headlines 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 almost abolished my
editorial page, making of it an attempt to amuse, not to instruct. I
printed every little personality, 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 compromised four libel suits, and
ran my circulation up to 3,200 in eleven months.
Then I formed some more conclusions. I evolved a newspaper 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 influence 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 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 editorials 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 better 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 uneconomic
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 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 tactics 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 influence. 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. Editorial warfare as conducted fifty years ago is
obsolete; its methods are as antiquated to-day as is the artillery of
that age.
III
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 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 occasion 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 experience 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
indulgence 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 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 whenever 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
difficult to see. All over the state and country there are papers just
like the _Herald_, controlled by little cliques of politicians, 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 a thousand and one
unnecessary “organs.” The politicians 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 mercenaries to the highest bidder. Only the weak are
gregarious, 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 longterm contract at an exorbitant price. No opposition was
expected. The city council had been “seen,” the reformers 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 company. I, fearless in my new control, sent out a small editorial
feeler, a little suggestion about municipal ownership. 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 attorney 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 didn’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_ didn’t care for
printing so very much, I said. But I would think it over.
The next day I followed up my municipal ownership editorial. 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 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 exhilaration 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 doesn’t care for good writing. It has no regard for reason.
During one political campaign I tried reason. That is, I didn’t denounce
the adversary. Admitting 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 instruct them, I should offend. God is
with the biggest circulations, and we must have them, even if we appeal
to class prejudice now and then.
I can occasionally foster a good work, almost underhandedly, it would
seem. I take little pleasure in it. The various churches, hospitals, the
library, all expect to be coddled indiscriminately and without returning
any thanks whatever. I formerly had as much railroad transportation 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 “suicide” and
“jeopardize.” We are visited by “agriculturalists,” 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 “assemblyman” into “ass,” meaning
nothing but condensation. Events still “transpire” in our small cities,
and inevitably we “try experiments.” We have learned to write
“trousers,” and “gents” appears only in our advertisements. In common
with the very biggest and best papers we always say “leniency.” That I
do these things, the last coercion of environment, is the saddest, to
me, of all.
THE COUNTRY EDITOR OF TO-DAY
BY CHARLES MOREAU HARGER
I
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 journalist 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 doesn’t seem so sad. When you see an
item in the city papers poking fun at the country editor for printing
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 duchess does not even
know of the existence of the aforesaid city paper, while John Jones and
many of his neighbors 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 conception 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 monthlies 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 miscellaneous matter that “fills up” the paper. His
energies then may be devoted to reporting the happenings of his locality
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 schoolteacher,” 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 persons 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 opening 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 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 editor 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 old-time country newspaper
abuse of “our loathed but esteemed contemporary” is passing away, it
being understood 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.
Country 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 gentleman 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 conventions
are.
“The power of the country press in Washington surprises me,” said a
Middle West congressman last winter. “During my two terms I have been
impressed with it constantly. 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 is looking after nothing but the county printing, gives
expression 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 powerful
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 editorial paragraph tells the politician of the
condition in that paper’s community, for he knows that it is put there
because the editor has gathered the idea from some one whom he trusts as
a leader—and the politician knows approximately 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 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 typographical errors and halting in its grammar, but
profuse in its laudations, is getting an unusual number of new
subscribers. Even you, though you may pretend to be unmindful, 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
impersonal; 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, biographical facts—born, married, died. But the news went back to
the small country town where in their early married life 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 relation 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 indulges the
stereotyped card of thanks? Does he haughtily refuse to be a party to
such violation of form’s canons? Scarcely. He knows the formula by heart
and “the kind friends and neighbors who assisted us in our late
bereavement” 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.
III
The past half-decade has brought to the country editor a new problem and
a new rival,—the rural delivery route. 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 Kansas 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 Thursday, 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 necessity 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
country 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 printing of the entire paper at home and the
decline of the “patent inside,” now so common, which has served its
purpose 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 linotypes 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 of life. He lives well; he travels
much; he meets the best people of his state; and, if he be inclined, he
can accomplish 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 satisfaction 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 increased 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 publication, 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 distance 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 existence 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 correspondent
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 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 telegraph 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 financial 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 vituperation,
who thundered through double-leaded columns 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 movements 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
régime.
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 exaggeration. 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 because 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 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 unacquainted 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, 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 syndicate, 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 aspirations, 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 business man
that he prefers to be classed.
SENSATIONAL JOURNALISM AND THE LAW
BY GEORGE W. ALGER
I
So much has been said in recent years concerning the methods and
policies of sensational journalism that a further 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 vulgarizing
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 insufficient to include the myriad
circulation-making enterprises of yellow journalism. These papers are
not simply purveyors of news and comment, but have what, for lack of a
better term, may be called constructive policies of their 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 conceived and drafted are
supported by specially prepared “monster petitions,” containing
thousands of names, badly written and of doubtful authenticity, of
supposed partisans, and by special trains filled with orators and a
heterogeneous rabble described in the news columns as “committees of
citizens,” who at critical periods are collected together and turned
loose upon the assembled lawmakers as an impressive object lesson of the
public interest fervidly aroused on behalf of the newspaper’s bill.
The ethics of persuasion is an interesting subject. It falls, however,
outside the scope of this article. It is impossible 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
characteristic of yellow journalism in its relation to lawmaking is that
it prefers ordinarily to obtain its ends by the use of intimidation
rather than by persuasion. The monster petition scheme just referred to
is merely one illustrative expression of this preference. When a
newspaper of this type is interested in having some official do some
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 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 obdurate 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 ferreting 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 picturesque
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
committed 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 publication 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 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 Barrère,—perhaps the
finest philippic against a notorious and inveterate 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 conduct 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 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
hostilities, 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 endeavors so strenuously to
supplant, to create public sentiment 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 the half-dozen daily
editions can be placed in their hands hot from the press. The news
furnished in them is, for the most part, of distinctively local
interest. In their columns the horizon is narrow and inexpressibly
dingy. Detailed narrations of sensational local happenings, preferably
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 influence 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 crime and as director of
municipal officials. So far as the 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 preliminary or temporary
injunctions against threatened official malfeasance, or where they have
instituted legal proceedings to expose corrupt jobbery. As to the actual
results thus accomplished, other than the publicity obtained, the
general public is not in a position to judge. Temporary injunctions
granted merely until the merits of the case can be heard and determined
are of no particular value if, when the trial day comes, the newspaper
plaintiff 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 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 enterprises in the civil courts, there
is less room for difference of opinion as to the methods with which they
are conducted. 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 enormous
circulation, championing the cause of the people, has wrested the law to
its clamorous authority. The attitude 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.”
II
One of the great features of counting-house journalism is its real or
supposed ability in the detection and punishment 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 electric chair, it is a
triumph for the paper whose reporters are the sleuths. While such
efforts, when crowned with success, are the source probably of much
credit and revenue, 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 journal’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
cartoons 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 exploring for new witnesses for the
prosecution, and should publish 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 recently shown in
the course of a great poisoning case in New York City, the history of
which forms a striking commentary on all these abuses) actually pay
large sums of money 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
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 compensation 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 summarily 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 editorially 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 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 celebrated 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 investigator” 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
reflecting 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 imprisonment. Shortly after their conviction
and sentence the editor 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:[8]—
Footnote 8:
1 K. B. (1902), 77.—G. W. A.
“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
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 contempt the authors of newspaper publications prejudicial
to fair trials. Some twenty-five years ago the state legislature passed
an act defining and limiting the cases in which summary punishment for
contempt should be inflicted by the courts. Similar legislation has been
attempted in other states, only to be declared unconstitutional by the
courts themselves, which hold that the power to punish is inherent in
the judiciary independently of legislative 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
usefulness 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 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 circumstances 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 attempt to
exercise, are as naught in comparison with their 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, particularly those of the Federal courts, body and soul; that
American institutions are rotten to the core, and that legislative halls
and courts of justice exist as instruments of oppression, to preserve
the rights of property by denying 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 welfare requires, not merely that judges should be
men of 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 important 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 inalienable 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 criticism, 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 invariably 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 corporation.
Justice holding her scales with a workingman unevenly 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;
Justice 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 sensational 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 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 unsound 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 granting sweeping, wholesale injunctions against strikers
they have accompanied their decrees at times with opinions so
unjudicial, so filled with mediæval prejudice and rancor against
legitimate organizations of working people as to rouse the indignation
of right-minded men, may be admitted. But prejudice and corruption are
totally dissimilar. 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 confidence 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-conservative 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 influence it
attempts to exert, and perhaps does exert, in particular 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 integrity of the courts and a patient faith in the ultimate
triumph of justice by law.
THE CRITIC AND THE LAW
BY RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD
I
A recent prosecution by the People of New York, represented by Mr.
Jerome, of a suit for criminal libel, attracted 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 unwholesome 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.[9] From a lawyer’s point of view it
was surprising to find that even professional critics and editorial
writers looked upon this case as involving 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 statement 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 unwholesome publication which had been offered to
the public for those to read who would, then the law of fair comment
would have controlled. No doubt, however, even the trained guides to the
public taste seldom realize the 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 suffice
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.
Footnote 9:
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.
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 statement 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 professional critic is given a greater
latitude by juries, who share the prevalent and not ill-advised view
that opinion expressed 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 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
public 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 comment 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
appeared, 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.
Unfortunately, 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 inception 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 appear 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 principle.
On the other hand, in Gott vs. Pulsifer there was involved 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 Phœnicians. The court said
that all manner of abuse might be heaped on the Giant’s adamant head.
“Anything 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 into a warfare of communication with
Old Subscriber; and so long as the contention is free from actionable
personalities, 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 comment 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 comment 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-conceived, 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 expression.
What is of interest to the general public, so that comment thereon will
be a right of the public, may, however, in certain cases trouble the
jury. A volume of love sonnets printed and circulated privately, and the
architecture of a person’s private dwelling, might furnish very delicate
cases.
In a time when those who desire to be conspicuous succeed so well in
becoming so, it is rather amusing to wonder just what may be the
difference between the right to comment 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 ridicule, if their cheeks are too tinted, their
eyebrows too 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 expressions 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 commercial 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 conspicuous and semi-public nature. It may be
said that at no time have private industries become of such startling
interest 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 certainly more vital than the management of some
semi-public institutions, which also are open to honest criticism.
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 their
management must have some force; in the case of other forms of
commercial activity, whose powers are inherent and not delegated, the
question must rest on the determination of the best public policy—a
determination which in all classes of cases decides, and ought to
decide, the right of fair comment.
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 severe,
serious or ridiculing, temperate or exaggerated; the critic is not
hampered in the free play of his honest opinions; he is not prohibited
from using the most stinging satire, the most extravagant burlesque, or
the most lacerating 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 leaving Ireland with
Regret,” and “containing and representing 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 appearance holding a pocket handkerchief to his face, and
appearing to be weeping,” and also representing “a malicious and
ridiculous man of ludicrous and ridiculous appearance 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 intending 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 thereafter his books did not appear in the list of the “six
bestsellers” 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 unsalable, but is he to be
indemnified by receiving a compensation 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 dissemination 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 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 comment 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 consideration 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 exaggerated 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 Columbus 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.
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 aristocrat, 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 consonance with accepted
notions that your continental croupier 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 tradition, 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 general 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 becomes a
universal right. It does not very clearly appear that the case of
Merrivale and Wife _vs._ Carson was decided 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.
III
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 connection with the particular work
or act which is being criticised. The critic is forbidden to touch upon
the domestic or private life of the individual, or upon such matters
concerning 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 contain a libel, since it went beyond matters
which concerned the public, and branded the conduct of the manager
toward 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
commanding officer, Oliver H. Perry, but to Jesse D. Elliot, who was a
subordinate, was attacked by the _New York Commercial Advertiser_, which
imputed to the author “a disregard of justice and propriety as a man,”
represented him as infatuated with vanity, mad with passion, and
publishing 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 attacked 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
defendant, inviting her to join and recommending to her the book. The
latter answered this letter with a polite refusal, saying 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 implied 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
advertisement, 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 comment
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.
No case presents a more complete confusion of the individual 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, presents to a certain extent his
own bodily and mental characteristics 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: “Effie 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 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 ventre_ 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 published
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 candidate of the opposing party, and an imitation of his
signature appeared beneath. The writing contained this misspelled,
unrhetorical sentence: “I don’t propose to go into debate on the tariff
differences on wool, quinine, and such, because I ain’t built that way.”
Readers were led to believe 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 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 excellent 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. Anonymous is of interest to no intelligent man”? According to the
opinion of Mr. Odgers, it would seem that such a sentence 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 question 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
statement of opinion or of fact?”
One other care remains for the critic: he must not falsely 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
may be found reported in the _Times_ for November 26 and 27, 1878. “The
mannerisms and errors of these pictures,” 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 far, to his own
or our desire, the result may yet be incomplete. 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,
overstepped 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, together with the inference, and the reader may judge of the
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
consequence to the public. If a book is immoral, it is immaterial 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 insincerity, 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
governor 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
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 criticism 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 comment 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 CRITICISM
BY CHARLES MINER THOMPSON
I
There are five groups interested in literary criticism: publishers of
books, authors, publishers of reviews, critics, and, finally, the
reading public.
An obvious interest of all the groups but the last is financial. For the
publisher of books, although he may have his pride, criticism is
primarily an advertisement: he hopes that his books will be so praised
as to commend them to 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
publishers of books to advertise in his columns. For the critic,
whatever his ideals, criticism is, in whole or in part, his livelihood.
For the author, no matter how disinterested, 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 competent service—a guide to agreeable reading, an adviser
in selecting gifts, a herald of new knowledge, a giver of intellectual
delight.
All five groups are discontented with the present condition 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 newspapers frankly doubt the interest of
book-notices. The critic confesses that his occupation is ill-considered
and ill-paid. The author wrathfully exclaims—but what he exclaims cannot
be summarized, so various is it. Thus, the whole commercial interest is
unsatisfied. The public, on the other hand, finds book-reviews of little
service and reads them, if at all, with indifference, with distrust, or
with exasperation. That part of the public which appreciates criticism
as an art maintains an eloquent silence and reads French.
Obviously, what frets the commercial interest is the public indifference
to book-reviews. What is the cause of that?
In critical writing, what is the base of interest, the indispensable
foundation in comparison with which all else is superstructure? I
mentioned the public which, appreciating criticism as an art, turns from
America to France for what it craves. Our sympathies respond to the call
of our own national life, and may not be satisfied by Frenchmen; if we
turn to them, we do so for some attraction which compensates for the
absence of intimate relation to our needs. What is it? Of course, French
mastery of form accounts in part for our intellectual absenteeism; but
it does not account for it wholly, not, I think, even in the main.
Consider the two schools of French criticism typified by Brunetière and
by Anatole France. Men like Brunetière seem to believe that what they
say is important, not merely to fellow dilettanti or to fellow scholars,
but to the public and to the mass of the public; they seem to write, not
to display their attainments, but to use their attainments to accomplish
their end; they put their whole strength, intellectual and moral, into
their argument; they seek to make converts, to crush enemies. They are
in earnest; they feel responsible; they take their office with high
seriousness. They seem to think that the soul and the character of the
people are as important as its economic comfort. The problem of a
contemporary, popular author—even if contemporary, even if popular—is to
them an important question; the intellectual, moral, and æsthetic ideals
which he is spreading through the country are to be tested rigorously,
then applauded or fought. They seek to be clear because they wish to
interest; they wish to interest because they wish to convince; they wish
to convince because they have convictions which they believe should
prevail.
The men like Anatole France—if there are any others like Anatole
France—have a different philosophy of life. They are doubtful of
endeavor, doubtful of progress, doubtful of new schools of art, doubtful
of new solutions whether in philosophy or economics; but they have a
quick sensitiveness to beauty and a profound sympathy with suffering
man. Not only do they face their doubts, but they make their readers
face them. They do not pretend; they do not conceal; they flatter no
conventions and no prejudices; they are sincere. Giving themselves
without reserve, they do not speak what they think will please you, but
rather try with all their art to please you with what they think.
In the French critics of both types—the men like Brunetière, the men
like Anatole France—there is this common, this invaluable
characteristic,—I mean intellectual candor. That is their great
attraction; that is the foundation of interest.
Intellectual candor does not mark American criticism. The fault is
primarily the publisher’s. It lies in the fundamental mistake that he
makes in the matter of publicity. Each publisher, that is, treats each
new book as if it were the only one that he had ever published, were
publishing, or ever should publish. He gives all his efforts to seeing
that it is praised. He repeats these exertions with some success for
each book that he prints. Meanwhile, every other publisher is doing as
much for every new book of his own. The natural result follows—a
monotony of praise which permits no books to stand out, and which,
however plausible in the particular instance, is, in the mass,
incredible.
But how is it that the publisher’s fiat produces praise? The answer is
implicit in the fact that criticism is supported, not by the public, but
by the publisher. Upon the money which the publisher of books is ready
to spend for advertising depends the publisher of book-reviews; upon him
in turn depends the critic.
Between the publisher of books anxious for favorable reviews and willing
to spend money, and the publisher of a newspaper anxious for
advertisements and supporting a dependent critic, the chance to trade is
perfect. Nothing sordid need be said or, indeed, perceived; all may be
left to the workings of human nature. Favorable reviews are printed,
advertisements are received; and no one, not even the principals, need
be certain that the reviews are not favorable because the books are
good, or that the advertisements are not given because the comment is
competent and just. Nevertheless, the Silent Bargain has been decorously
struck. Once reached, it tends of itself to become ever more close,
intimate, and inclusive. The publisher of books is continuously tempted
to push his advantage with the complaisant publisher of a newspaper; the
publisher of a newspaper is continuously tempted to pitch ever higher
and still higher the note of praise.
But the Silent Bargain is not made with newspapers only. Obviously,
critics can say nothing without the consent of some publisher;
obviously, their alternatives are silence or submission. They who write
for the magazines are wooed to constant surrender; they must, or they
think that they must, be tender of all authors who have commercial
relations with the house that publishes the periodical to which they are
contributing. Even they who write books are not exempt; they must, or
they feel that they must, deal gently with reputations commercially dear
to their publisher. If the critic is timid, or amiable, or intriguing,
or struck with poverty, he is certain, whatever his rank, to dodge, to
soften, to omit whatever he fears may displease the publisher on whom he
depends. Selfish considerations thus tend ever to emasculate criticism;
criticism thus tends ever to assume more and more nearly the most
dishonest and exasperating form of advertisement, that of the “reading
notice” which presents itself as sincere, spontaneous testimony.
Disingenuous criticism tends in its turn to puzzle and disgust the
public—and to hurt the publisher. The puff is a boomerang.
Its return blow is serious; it would be fatal, could readers turn away
wholly from criticism. What saves the publisher is that they cannot.
They have continuous, practical need of books, and must know about them.
The multitudinous paths of reading stretch away at every angle, and the
traveling crowd must gather and guess and wonder about the guide-post
criticism, even if each finger, contradicting every other, points to its
own road as that “To Excellence.”
Wayfarers in like predicament would question one another. It is so with
readers. Curiously enough, publishers declare that their best
advertising flows from this private talk. They all agree that, whereas
reviews sell nothing, the gossip of readers sells much. Curiously, I
say; for this gossip is not under their control; it is as often adverse
as favorable; it kills as much as it sells. Moreover, when it kills, it
kills in secret; it leaves the bewildered publisher without a clue to
the culprit or his motive. How, then, can it be superior to the
controlled, considerate flattery of the public press? It is odd that
publishers never seriously ask themselves this question, for the answer,
if I have it, is instructive. The dictum of the schoolgirl that a novel
is “perfectly lovely” or “perfectly horrid,” comes from the heart. The
comment of society women at afternoon tea, the talk of business men at
the club, if seldom of much critical value, is sincere. In circles in
which literature is loved, the witty things which clever men and clever
women say about books are inspired by the fear neither of God nor of
man. In circles falsely literary, parrot talk and affectation hold sway,
but the talkers have an absurd faith in one another. In short, all
private talk about books bears the stamp of sincerity. That is what
makes the power of the spoken word. It is still more potent when it
takes the form, not of casual mention, but of real discussion. When
opinions differ, talk becomes animated, warm, continuous. Listeners are
turned into partisans. A lively, unfettered dispute over a book by witty
men, no matter how prejudiced, or by clever women, no matter how
unlearned, does not leave the listener indifferent. He is tempted to
read that book.
Now, what the publisher needs in order to print with financial profit
the best work and much work, is the creation of a wide general interest
in literature. This vastly transcends in importance the fate of any one
book or group of books. Instead, then, of trying to start in the public
press a chorus of stupid praise, why should he not endeavor to obtain a
reproduction of what he acknowledges that his experience has taught him
is his main prop and support—the frank word, the unfettered dispute of
private talk? Let him remember what has happened when the vivacity of
public opinion has forced this reproduction. It is history that those
works have been best advertised over which critics have fought—Hugo’s
dramas, Wagner’s music, Whitman’s poems, Zola’s novels, Mrs. Stowe’s
_Uncle Tom_.
Does it not all suggest the folly of the Silent Bargain?
I have spoken always of tendencies. Public criticism never has been and
never will be wholly dishonest, even when in the toils of the Silent
Bargain; it never has been and never will be wholly honest, even with
that cuttlefish removed. But if beyond cavil it tended towards
sincerity, the improvement would be large. In the measure of that
tendency it would gain the public confidence without which it can
benefit no one—not even the publisher. For his own sake he should do
what he can to make the public regard the critic, not as a mere
megaphone for his advertisements, but as an honest man who speaks his
honest mind. To this end, he should deny his foolish taste for praise,
and, even to the hurt of individual ventures, use his influence to
foster independence in the critic.
In the way of negative help, he should cease to tempt lazy and
indifferent reviewers with ready-made notices, the perfunctory and
insincere work of some minor employee; he should stop sending out, as
“literary” notes, thinly disguised advertisements and irrelevant
personalities; he should no longer supply photographs of his authors in
affected poses that display their vanity much and their talent not at
all. That vulgarity he should leave to those who have soubrettes to
exploit; he should not treat his authors as if they were variety
artists—unless, indeed, they are just that, and he himself on the level
of the manager of a low vaudeville house. These cheap devices lower his
dignity as a publisher, they are a positive hurt to the reputation of
his authors, they make less valuable to him the periodical that prints
them, and they are an irritation and an insult to the critic, for, one
and all, they are attempts to insinuate advertising into his honest
columns. Frankly, they are modes of corruption, and degrade the whole
business of writing.
In the way of positive help, he should relieve of every commercial
preoccupation, not only the editors and contributors of any magazines
that he may control, but also those authors of criticism and critical
biography whose volumes he may print. Having cleaned his own house, he
should steadily demand of the publications in which he advertises, a
higher grade of critical writing, and should select the periodicals to
which to send his books for notice, not according to the partiality, but
according to the ability of their reviews. Thus he would do much to make
others follow his own good example.
II
What of the author? In respect of criticism, the publisher, of course,
has no absolute rights, not even that of having his books noticed at
all. His interests only have been in question, and, in the long run and
in the mass, these will not be harmed, but benefited, by criticism
honestly adverse. He has in his writers a hundred talents, and if his
selection is shrewd most of them bring profit. Frank criticism will but
help the task of judicious culling. But all that has been said assumes
the cheerful sacrifice of the particular author who must stake his all
upon his single talent. Does his comparative helplessness give him any
right to tender treatment?
It does not; in respect of rights his, precisely, is the predicament of
the publisher. If an author puts forth a book for sale, he obviously can
be accorded no privilege incompatible with the right of the public to
know its value. He cannot ask to have the public fooled for his benefit;
he cannot ask to have his feelings saved, if to save them the critic
must neglect to inform his readers. That is rudimentary. Nor may the
author argue more subtly that, until criticism is a science and truth
unmistakable, he should be given the benefit of the doubt. This was the
proposition behind the plea, strongly urged not so long ago, that all
criticism should be “sympathetic”; that is, that the particular critic
is qualified to judge those writers only whom, on the whole, he likes.
Love, it was declared, is the only key to understanding. The obvious
value of the theory to the Silent Bargain accounts for its popularity
with the commercial interests. Now, no one can quarrel with the
criticism of appreciation—it is full of charm and service; but to
pretend that it should be the only criticism is impertinent and vain. To
detect the frivolity of such a pretension, one has only to apply it to
public affairs; imagine a political campaign in which the candidates
were criticised only by their friends! No; the critic should attack
whatever he thinks is bad, and he is quite as likely to be right when he
does so as when he applauds what he thinks is good. In a task wherein
the interest of the public is the one that every time and all the time
should be served, mercy to the author is practically always a betrayal.
To the public, neither the vanity nor the purse of the author is of the
slightest consequence. Indeed, a criticism powerful enough to curb the
conceit of some authors, and to make writing wholly unprofitable to
others, would be an advantage to the public, to really meritorious
authors, and to the publisher.
And the publisher—to consider his interests again for a moment—would
gain not merely by the suppression of useless, but by the discipline of
spoiled, writers. For the Silent Bargain so works as to give to many an
author an exaggerated idea of his importance. It leads the publisher
himself—what with his complaisant reviewers, his literary notes, his
personal paragraphs, his widely distributed photographs—to do all that
he can to turn the author’s head. Sometimes he succeeds. When the
spoiled writer, taking all this _au grand sérieux_, asks why sales are
not larger, then how hard is the publisher pressed for an answer! If the
author chooses to believe, not the private but the public statement of
his merit, and bases upon it either a criticism of his publisher’s
energy or a demand for further publishing favors,—increase of
advertising, higher royalties, what not,—the publisher is in a
ridiculous and rather troublesome quandary. None but the initiated know
what he has occasionally to endure from the arrogance of certain
writers. Here fearless criticism should help him much.
But if the conceit of some authors offends, the sensitiveness of others
awakens sympathy. The author does his work in solitude; his material is
his own soul; his anxiety about a commercial venture is complicated with
the apprehension of the recluse who comes forth into the market-place
with his heart upon his sleeve. Instinctively he knows that, as his book
is himself, or at least a fragment of himself, criticism of it is truly
criticism of him, not of his intellectual ability merely, but of his
essential character, his real value as a man. Let no one laugh until he
has heard and survived the most intimate, the least friendly comment
upon his own gifts and traits, made in public for the delectation of his
friends and acquaintances and of the world at large. Forgivably enough,
the author is of all persons the one most likely to be unjust to critics
and to criticism. In all ages he has made bitter counter-charges, and
flayed the critics as they have flayed him. His principal complaints are
three: first, that all critics are disappointed authors; second, that
many are young and incompetent, or simply incompetent; third, that they
do not agree. Let us consider them in turn.
Although various critics write with success other things than criticism,
the first complaint is based, I believe, upon what is generally a fact.
It carries two implications: the first, that one cannot competently
judge a task which he is unable to perform himself; the second, that the
disappointed author is blinded by jealousy. As to the first, no writer
ever refrained out of deference to it from criticising, or even
discharging, his cook. As to the second, jealousy does not always blind:
sometimes it gives keenness of vision. The disappointed author turned
critic may indeed be incompetent; but, if he is so, it is for reasons
that his disappointment does not supply. If he is able, his
disappointment will, on the contrary, help his criticism. He will have a
wholesome contempt for facile success; he will measure by exacting
standards. Moreover, the thoughts of a talented man about an art for the
attainment of which he has striven to the point of despair are certain
to be valuable; his study of the masters has been intense; his study of
his contemporaries has had the keenness of an ambitious search for the
key to success. His criticism, even if saturated with envy, will have
value. In spite of all that partisans of sympathetic criticism may say,
hatred and malice may give as much insight into character as love.
Sainte-Beuve was a disappointed author, jealous of the success of
others.
But ability is necessary. Envy and malice, not reinforced by talent, can
win themselves small satisfaction, and do no more than transient harm;
for then they work at random and make wild and senseless charges. To be
dangerous to the author, to be valuable to the public, to give pleasure
to their possessor, they must be backed by acuteness to perceive and
judgment to proclaim real flaws only. The disappointed critic of ability
knows that the truth is what stings, and if he seeks disagreeable truth,
at least he seeks truth. He knows also that continual vituperation is as
dull as continual praise; if only to give relief to his censure, he will
note what is good. He will mix honey with the gall. So long as he speaks
truth, he does a useful work, and his motives are of no consequence to
any one but himself. Even if he speaks it with unnecessary roughness,
the author cannot legitimately complain. Did he suppose that he was
sending his book into a world of gentlemen only? Truth is truth, and a
boor may have it. That the standard of courtesy is sometimes hard to
square with that of perfect sincerity is the dilemma of the critic; but
the author can quarrel with the fact no more than with the circumstance
that in a noisy world he can write best where there is quiet. If he
suffers, let him sift criticism through his family; consoling himself,
meanwhile, with the reflection that there is criticism of criticism, and
that any important critic will ultimately know his pains. Leslie Stephen
was so sensitive that he rarely read reviews of his critical writings.
After all, the critic is also an author.
The second complaint of writers, that criticism is largely young and
incompetent,—or merely incompetent,—is well founded. The reason lies in
the general preference of publishers for criticism that is laudatory
even if absurd. Again we meet the Silent Bargain. The commercial
publisher of book-reviews, realizing that any fool can praise a book, is
apt to increase his profits by lowering the wage of his critic. At its
extreme point, his thrift requires a reviewer of small brains and less
moral courage; such a man costs less and is unlikely ever to speak with
offensive frankness. Thus it happens that, commonly in the newspapers
and frequently in periodicals of some literary pretension, the writers
of reviews are shiftless literary hacks, shallow, sentimental women, or
crude young persons full of indiscriminate enthusiasm for all printed
matter.
I spoke of the magazines. When their editors say that literary papers
are not popular, do they consider what writers they admit to the work,
with what payment they tempt the really competent, what limitations they
impose upon sincerity? Do they not really mean that the amiable in
manner or the remote in subject, which alone they consider expedient, is
not popular? Do they really believe that a brilliant writer, neither a
dilettante nor a Germanized scholar, uttering with fire and conviction
his full belief, would not interest the public? Do they doubt that such
a writer could be found, if sought? The reviews which they do print are
not popular; but that proves nothing in respect of better reviews.
Whatever the apparent limitations of criticism, it actually takes the
universe for its province. In subject it is as protean as life itself;
in manner it may be what you will. To say, then, that neither American
writers nor American readers can be found for it is to accuse the nation
of a poverty of intellect so great as to be incredible. No; commercial
timidity, aiming always to produce a magazine so inoffensive as to
insinuate itself into universal tolerance, is the fundamental cause of
the unpopularity of the average critical article; how can the public
fail to be indifferent to what lacks life, appositeness to daily needs,
conviction, intellectual and moral candor? At least one reason why we
have no Brunetière is that there is almost no periodical in which such a
man may write.
In the actual, not the possible, writers of our criticism there is, in
the lower ranks, a lack of skill, of seriousness, of reasonable
competence, and a cynical acceptance of the dishonest rôle they are
expected to play; in the higher ranks, there is a lack of any vital
message, a desire rather to win, without offending the publisher, the
approval of the ultra-literary and the scholarly, than really to reach
and teach the public. It is this degradation, this lack of earnestness,
and not lack of inherent interest in the general topic, which makes our
critical work unpopular, and deprives the whole literary industry of
that quickening and increase of public interest from which alone can
spring a vigorous and healthy growth. This feebleness will begin to
vanish the moment that the publishers of books, who support criticism,
say peremptorily that reviews that interest, not reviews that puff, are
what they want. When they say this, that is the kind of reviews they
will get. If that criticism indeed prove interesting, it will then be
printed up to the value of the buying power of the public, and it will
be supported where it should be—not by the publisher but by the people.
It is said in excuse that, as a city has the government, so the public
has the criticism, which it deserves. That is debatable; but, even so,
to whose interest is it that the taste of the public should be improved?
Honest criticism addressed to the public, by writers who study how to
interest it rather than how to flatter the producers of books, would
educate. The education of readers, always the soundest investment of the
publisher, can never be given by servile reviewers feebly echoing his
own interested advertisements. They are of no value—to the public, the
publisher, or the author.
The publisher of a newspaper of which reviews are an incident need not,
however, wait for the signal. If, acting on the assumption that his duty
is, not to the publisher but to the public, he will summon competent and
earnest reviewers to speak the truth as they see it, he will infallibly
increase the vivacity and interest of his articles and the pleasure and
confidence of his readers. He will not have any permanent loss of
advertising. Whenever he establishes his periodical as one read by
lovers of literature, he has the publishers at his mercy. But suppose
that his advertising decreases? Let him not make the common mistake of
measuring the value of a department by the amount of related advertising
that it attracts. The general excellence of his paper as an advertising
medium—supposing he has no aim beyond profit—is what he should seek. The
public which reads and enjoys books is worth attracting, even if the
publisher does not follow, for it buys other things than books.
If, however, his newspaper is not one that can please people of literary
tastes, he will get book-advertising only in negligible quantities no
matter how much he may praise the volumes sent him. Of what use are
puffs which fall not under the right eyes?
If, again, his periodical seems an exception to this reasoning, and his
puffery appears to bring him profit, let him consider the parts of it
unrelated to literature; he will find there matter which pleases readers
of intelligence, and he may be sure that this, quite as much as his
praise, is what brings the publishers’ advertisements; he may be sure
that, should he substitute sincere criticism, the advertisements would
increase.
III
The third complaint of the author—from whom I have wandered—is that
critics do not agree. To argue that whenever two critics hold different
opinions, the criticism of one of them must be valueless, is absurd. The
immediate question is, valueless to whom—to the public or to the author?
If the author is meant, the argument assumes that criticism is written
for the instruction of the author, which is not true. Grammar and facts
a critic can indeed correct; but he never expects to change an author’s
style or make his talent other than it is. Though he may lash the man,
he does not hope to reform him. However slightly acquainted with
psychology, the critic knows that a mature writer does not change and
cannot change; his character is made, his gifts, such as they are, are
what they are. On the contrary, the critic writes to influence the
public—to inform the old, to train the young. He knows that his chief
chance is with plastic youth; he hopes to form the future writer; still
more he hopes to form the future reader. He knows that the effect of
good reviewing stops not with the books reviewed, but influences the
reader’s choice among thousands of volumes as yet undreamed of by any
publisher.
If, on the other hand, the public is meant, the argument assumes that
one man’s meat is not another man’s poison. The bird prefers seed, and
the dog a bone, and there is no standard animal food. Nor, likewise, is
there any standard intellectual food: both critics, however they
disagree, may be right.
No author, no publisher, should think that variety invalidates
criticism. If there is any certainty about critics, it is that they will
not think alike. The sum of _x_ (a certain book) plus _y_ (a certain
critic) can never be the same as _x_ (the same book) plus _z_ (a
different critic). A given book cannot affect a man of a particular
ability, temperament, training, as it affects one of a different
ability, temperament, and training. A book is never complete without a
reader, and the value of the combination is all that can be found out.
For the value of a book is varying: it varies with the period, with the
nationality, with the character of the reader. Shakespeare had one value
for the Elizabethans; he has a different value for us, and still another
for the Frenchman; he has a special value for the playgoer, and a
special value for the student in his closet. In respect of literary art,
pragmatism is right: there is no truth, there are truths. About all
vital writing there is a new truth born with each new reader. Therein
lies the unending fascination of books, the temptation to infinite
discussion. To awaken an immortal curiosity is the glory of genius.
From all this it follows that critics are representative; each one
stands for a group of people whose spokesman he has become, because he
has, on the whole, their training, birth from their class, the
prejudices of their community and of their special group in that
community, and therefore expresses their ideals. Once let publisher and
author grasp this idea, and criticism, however divergent, will come to
have a vital meaning for them. The publisher can learn from the judgment
of the critic what the judgment of his group in the community is likely
to be, and from a succession of such judgments through a term of years,
he can gain valuable information as to the needs, the tastes, the ideals
of the public, or of the group of publics, which he may wish to serve.
Accurate information straight from writers serving the public—that, I
cannot too often repeat, is worth more to him than any amount of
obsequious praise. That precisely is what he cannot get until all
critics are what they should be—lawyers whose only clients are their own
convictions.
The author also gains. Although he is always liable to the
disappointment of finding that his book has failed to accomplish his
aim, he nevertheless can draw the sting from much adverse criticism if
he will regard, not its face value, but its representative value. He is
writing for a certain audience; the criticism of that audience only,
then, need count. If he has his own public with him, he is as safe as a
man on an island viewing a storm at sea, no matter how critics
representing other publics may rage. Not all the adverse comment in this
country on E. P. Roe, in England on Ouida, in France on Georges Ohnet
ever cost them a single reader. Their audience heard it not; it did not
count. There is, of course, a difference of value in publics, and if
these writers had a tragedy, it lay in their not winning the audience of
their choice. But this does not disturb the statement as to the vanity
of adverse criticism for an author who hears objurgations from people
whom he did not seek to please. Sometimes, indeed, such objurgations
flatter. If, for example, the author has written a novel which is in
effect an attempt to batter down ancient prejudice, nothing should
please him more than to hear the angry protests of the conservative—they
may be the shrieks of the dying, as was the case, for instance, when Dr.
Holmes wrote the _Autocrat_; they show, at any rate, that the book has
hit.
Now, each in its degree, every work of art is controversial and cannot
help being so until men are turned out, like lead soldiers, from a
common mould. Every novel, for example, even when not written “with a
purpose,” has many theories behind it—a theory as to its proper
construction, a theory as to its proper content, a theory of life. Every
one is a legitimate object of attack, and in public or private is
certain to be attacked. Does the author prefer to be fought in the open
or stabbed in the dark?—that is really his only choice. The author of a
novel, a poem, an essay, or a play should think of it as a new idea, or
a new embodiment of an idea, which is bound to hurtle against others
dear to their possessors. He should remember that a book that arouses no
discussion is a poor, dead thing. Let him cultivate the power of
analysis, and seek from his critics, not praise, but knowledge of what,
precisely, he has done. If he has sought to please, he can learn what
social groups he has charmed, what groups he has failed to interest, and
why, and may make a new effort with a better chance of success. If he
has sought to prevail, he can learn whether his blows have told, and,
what is more important, upon whom. In either case, to know the nature of
his general task, he must learn three things: whom his book has
affected, how much it has affected them, and in what way it has affected
them. Only through honest, widespread, really representative criticism,
can the author know these things.
Whatever their individual hurts, the publisher of books, the publisher
of book-reviews, and the author should recognize that the entire
sincerity of criticism, which is the condition of its value to the
public, is also the condition of its value to them. It is a friend whose
wounds are faithful. The lesson that they must learn is this: an honest
man giving an honest opinion is a respectable person, and if he has any
literary gift at all, a forcible writer. What he says is read, and, what
is more, it is trusted. If he has cultivation enough to maintain himself
as a critic,—as many of those now writing have not, once servility
ceases to be a merit,—he acquires a following upon whom his influence is
deep and real, and upon whom, in the measure of his capacity, he exerts
an educational force. If to honesty he adds real scholarship, sound
taste, and vivacity as a writer, he becomes a leading critic, and his
influence for good is proportionally enlarged. If there were honest
critics with ability enough to satisfy the particular readers they
served in every periodical now printing literary criticism, public
interest in reviews, and consequently in books, would greatly increase.
And public interest and confidence once won, the standing, and with it
the profit, of the four groups commercially interested in literature
would infallibly rise. This is the condition which all four should work
to create.
Would it arrive if the publisher of books should repudiate the Silent
Bargain? If he should send with the book for review, not the usual
ready-made puff, but a card requesting only the favor of a sincere
opinion; if, furthermore, he showed his good faith by placing his
advertisements where the quality of the reviewing was best, would the
critical millennium come? It would not. I have made the convenient
assumption that the critic needs only permission to be sincere.
Inevitable victim of the Silent Bargain he may be, but he is human and
will not be good simply because he has the chance. But he would be
better than he is—if for no other reason than because many of his
temptations would be removed. The new conditions would at once and
automatically change the direction of his personal interests. He and his
publisher would need to interest the public. Public service would be the
condition of his continuing critic at all. He would become the agent,
not of the publisher to the public, but of the public to the publisher.
And although then, as now in criticism of political affairs, insincere
men would sacrifice their standards to their popularity, they would
still reflect public opinion. To know what really is popular opinion is
the first step toward making it better. Accurately to know it is of the
first commercial importance for publisher and author, of the first
public importance for the effective leaders of public opinion.
This new goal of criticism—the desire to attract the public—would have
other advantages. It would diminish the amount of criticism. One of the
worst effects of the Silent Bargain is the obligation of the reviewer to
notice every book that is sent him—not because it interests him, not
because it will interest his public, but to satisfy the publisher. Thus
it happens that many a newspaper spreads before its readers scores upon
scores of perfunctory reviews in which are hopelessly concealed those
few written with pleasure, those few which would be welcome to its
public. Tired by the mere sight, readers turn hopelessly away. Now, many
books lack interest for any one; of those that remain, many lack
interest for readers of a particular publication. Suppose a reviewer,
preoccupied, not with the publisher, but with his own public, confronted
by the annual mass of books: ask yourself what he would naturally do. He
would notice, would he not, those books only in which he thought that he
could interest his readers? He would warn his public against books which
would disappoint them; he would take pleasure in praising books which
would please them. The glow of personal interest would be in what he
wrote, and, partly for this reason, partly because the reviews would be
few, his public would read them. Herein, again, the publisher would
gain; conspicuous notices of the right books would go to the right
people. An automatic sifting and sorting of his publications, like that
done by the machines which grade fruit, sending each size into its
appropriate pocket, would take place.
But the greatest gain to criticism remains to be pointed out. The
critics who have chosen silence, rather than submission to the Silent
Bargain, would have a chance to write. They are the best critics, and
when they resume the pen, the whole industry of writing will gain.
IV
But the critic, though liberated, has many hard questions to decide,
many subtle temptations to resist. There is the question of his motives,
which I said are of no consequence to the author or to the public so
long as what he speaks is truth; but which, I must now add, are of great
consequence to him. If he feels envy and malice, he must not cherish
them as passions to be gratified, but use them, if at all, as dangerous
tools. He must be sure that his ruling passion is love of good work—a
love strong enough to make him proclaim it, though done by his worst
enemy. There is the question again of his own limitations; he must be on
his guard lest they lead him into injustice, and yet never so timid that
he fails to say what he thinks, for fear it may be wrong.
I speak of these things from the point of view of the critic’s duty to
himself; but they are a part also of his duty towards his neighbor, the
author. What that duty may precisely be, is his most difficult problem.
A few things only are plain. He ought to say as much against a friend as
against an enemy, as much against a publisher whom he knows as against a
publisher of England or France. He must dare to give pain. He must make
his own the ideals of Sarcey. “I love the theatre,” he wrote to Zola,
“with so absolute a devotion that I sacrifice everything, even my
particular friends, even, what is much more difficult, my particular
enemies, to the pleasure of pushing the public towards the play which I
consider good, and of keeping it away from the play which I consider
bad.”
That perhaps was comparatively easy for Sarcey with his clear ideal of
the well-made piece; it is perhaps easy in the simple, straightforward
appraisal of the ordinary book; but the critic may be excused if he
feels compunctions and timidities when the task grows more complex,
when, arming himself more and more with the weapons of psychology, he
seeks his explanations of a given work where undoubtedly they lie, in
the circumstances, the passions, the brains, the very disorders of the
author. How far in this path may he go? Unquestionably, he may go far,
very far with the not too recent dead; but with the living how far may
he go, how daring may he make his guess? For guess it will be, since his
knowledge, if not his competence, will be incomplete until memoirs,
letters, diaries, reminiscences bring him their enlightenment. One
thinks first what the author may suffer when violent hands are laid upon
his soul, and one recoils; but what of the public? Must the public,
then, not know its contemporaries just as far as it can—these
contemporaries whose strong influence for good or evil it is bound to
undergo? These have full license to play upon the public; shall not the
public, in its turn, be free to scrutinize to any, the most intimate
extent, the human stuff from which emanates the strong influence which
it feels? If the public good justifies dissection, does it not also
justify vivisection? Is literature an amusement only, or is it a living
force which on public grounds the critic has every right in all ways to
measure? Doubtless his right in the particular case may be tested by the
importance of the answer to the people, yet the grave delicacy of this
test—which the critic must apply himself—is equaled only by the
ticklishness of the task. Yet there lies the path of truth, serviceable,
ever honorable truth.
The critic is, in fact, confronted by two standards. Now and again he
must make the choice between admirable conduct and admirable criticism.
They are not the same. It is obvious that what is outrageous conduct may
be admirable criticism, that what is admirable conduct may be inferior,
shuffling criticism. Which should he choose? If we make duty to the
public the test, logic seems to require that he should abate no jot of
his critical message. It certainly seems hard that he should be held to
a double (and contradictory) standard when others set in face of a like
dilemma are held excused. The priest is upheld in not revealing the
secrets of the confessional, the lawyer in not betraying the secret
guilt of his client, although as a citizen each should prefer the public
to the individual; whereas the critic who, reversing the case,
sacrifices the individual to the public, is condemned. The public should
recognize, I think, his right to a special code like that accorded the
priest, the lawyer, the soldier, the physician. He should be relieved of
certain social penalties, fear of which may cramp his freedom and so
lessen his value. Who cannot easily see that a critic may write from the
highest sense of duty words which would make him the “no gentleman” that
Cousin said Sainte-Beuve was?
But the whole question is thorny; that writer will do an excellent
service to letters who shall speak an authoritative word upon the ethics
of criticism. At present, there is nothing—except the law of libel. The
question is raised here merely to the end of asking these further
questions: Would not the greatest freedom help rather than hurt the
cause of literature? Is not the double standard too dangerous a weapon
to be allowed to remain in the hands of the upholders of the Silent
Bargain?
Meanwhile —until the problem is solved —the critic must be an explorer
of untraveled ethical paths. Let him be bold whether he is a critic of
the deeds of the man of action, or of those subtler but no less real
deeds, the words of an author! For, the necessary qualifications made,
all that has been said of literary criticism applies to all
criticism—everywhere there is a Silent Bargain to be fought, everywhere
honest opinion has powerful foes.
The thing to do for each author of words or of deeds, each critic of one
or the other, is to bring his own pebble of conviction however rough and
sharp-cornered and throw it into that stream of discussion which will
roll and grind it against others, and finally make of it and of them
that powder of soil in which, let us hope, future men will raise the
crop called truth.
DRAMATIC CRITICISM IN THE AMERICAN PRESS
BY JAMES S. METCALFE
A little insight into the practical conditions which surround newspaper
criticism to-day is needed before we can estimate its value or
importance as an institution. Venial and grossly incompetent critics
there have always been, but these have eventually been limited in their
influence through the inevitable discovery of their defects. They were
and are individual cases, which may be disregarded in a general view.
The question to be considered is, whether our newspapers have any
dramatic criticism worthy of the name, and, if there is none, what are
the causes of its nonexistence.
When the late William Winter lost his position as dramatic critic of the
_New York Tribune_, the event marked not alone the virtual disappearance
from the American press of dramatic criticism as our fathers knew and
appreciated it: the circumstances of the severance of his half-century’s
connection with that publication also illustrate vividly a principal
reason for the extinction of criticism as it used to be.
At the time mentioned the _Tribune_ had not fallen entirely from its
early estate. It was still a journal for readers who thought. Its strong
political partisanship limited its circulation, which had been for some
time declining. It had been hurt by the fierce competition of its
sensational and more enterprising contemporaries. The _Tribune_ could
not afford to lose any of the advertising revenue which was essential to
its very existence.
Mr. Winter would not write to orders. He had certain prejudices, but
they were honest ones, and those who knew his work were able to discount
them in sifting his opinions. For instance, he had a sturdy hatred for
the Ibsen kind of dissectional drama, and it was practically impossible
for him to do justice even to good acting in plays of this school.
In a broader way he was the enemy of uncleanness on the stage. For this
reason he had frequently denounced a powerful firm of managers whom he
held to be principally responsible for the, at first insidious and then
rapid, growth of indecency in our theatre. These managers controlled a
large amount of the theatrical advertising. The _Tribune_ frequently
printed on one page large advertisements of the enterprises these men
represented, and on another page they would find themselves described,
in Mr. Winter’s most vigorous English, as panders who were polluting the
theatre and its patrons. They knew the _Tribune’s_ weak financial
condition and demanded that Mr. Winter’s pen be curbed, the alternative
being a withdrawal of their advertising patronage. What happened then
was a scandal, and is history in the newspaper and theatrical world.
Mr. Winter refused to be muzzled. In spite of a half-century’s faithful
service, he was practically dismissed from the staff of the _Tribune_.
If it had not been for a notable benefit performance given for him by
artists who honored him, and generously patronized by his friends and
the public who knew his work, his last days would have been devoid of
comfort.
Mr. Winter’s experience, although he is not the only critic who has lost
his means of livelihood through the influence of the advertising
theatrical manager, is in some form present to the mind of every
newspaper writer in the province of the theatre. No matter how strong
the assurance of his editor that he may go as far as he pleases in
telling the truth, he knows that even the editor himself is in fear of
the dread summons from the business office. If the critic has had any
experience in the newspaper business,—no longer a profession,—he writes
what he pleases, but with his subconscious mind tempering justice with
mercy for the enterprises of the theatrical advertiser. This, of course,
does not preclude his giving a critical tone to what he writes by
finding minor defects and even flaying unimportant artists. But woe be
unto him if he launches into any general denunciation of theatrical
methods, or attacks the enterprise of the advertising manager in a way
that imperils profits.
There are exceptions to these general statements, especially outside of
New York. There are a few newspapers left where the editorial conscience
outweighs the influence of the counting-room. Even in these cases the
reviewer, if he is wise, steers clear of telling too much truth about
enterprises whose belligerent managers are only too glad to worry his
employers with complaints of persecution or injustice. In other places
the theatrical advertising is not of great value, particularly where the
moving-picture has almost supplanted the legitimate theatre. Here we
occasionally find criticism of the old sort, particularly if, in the
local reviewer’s mind, the entertainment offered is not up to what he
considers the Broadway standard of production. Here the publisher’s
regard for local pride will sometimes excuse the reviewer’s affront to
the infrequently visiting manager and the wares he offers.
Another exception is the purely technical critic who has no broader
concern with the theatre than recording the impressions which come to
him through his eyes, ears, and memory. He is safe, because he rarely
offends. He is scarce, because he is little read and newspapers cannot
give him the space he requires for analysis and recollection. The
high-pressure life of the newspaper reader calls for a newspaper made
under high pressure and for to-day. In this process there is little
opportunity for the display of the scholarship, leisurely thinking, and
carefully evolved judgments which gave their fame to critics of an
earlier period. In the few remaining survivals of the strictly technical
critic their failure to interest many readers, or exercise much
influence, may argue less a lack of ability on their part than a change
from a thinking to a non-thinking public. Even in the big Sunday
editions of the city dailies, where the pages are generously padded with
text to carry the displayed theatrical advertising, the attempts to rise
to a higher critical plane than is possible in the hurried weekday
review are in themselves frequent evidence that technical criticism is a
thing of the past so far as the newspapers are concerned.
The close connection of the business of the newspaper with the business
of the theatre accounts for the practical disappearance of the element
of fearlessness in critical dealing with the art of the stage,
particularly as the business control of the theatre is largely
responsible for whatever decline we may discern in the art of the
theatre. Of course, if criticism were content to concern itself only
with results, and not to look for causes, the matter of business
interests would figure little in the discussion. But when the critic
dares to go below the surface and discern commercialism as the main
cause of the decline that he condemns in the art of the stage, he finds
himself on dangerous ground.
The theatre has always had to have its business side. Actors must live
and the accessories of their art must be provided. To this extent the
stage has always catered to the public. But from the days of the
strolling player to those of the acting-manager the voice from back of
the curtain has, until of recent years, had at least as much of command
as that of the ticket-seller. Both in the theatre and in the press
modern conditions have in great measure thrown the control to the
material side; and just as the artist and dramatist have become
subservient to the manager, the editor and critic have come under the
domination of the publisher.
The need of a greater revenue to house plays and public has placed the
theatre in the hands of those who could manage to secure that revenue.
The same necessity on the material and mechanical side has put the power
of the press in the hands of those who could best supply its financial
needs. With both theatre and press on a commercial basis, it follows
naturally that the art of acting and the art of criticism should both
decline.
Here we have the main causes that work from the inside for the
deterioration of an art and for the destruction of the standards by
which that art is measured. The outside causes are, of course, the basic
ones, but before we get to them we must understand the connecting links
which join the cause to the effect. To-day we certainly have no Hazlitts
or Sarceys writing for the American press. It might be enlightening with
respect to present conditions to consider the probabilities and
circumstances of their employment if they were here and in the flesh.
Can any one conceive of an American newspaper giving space to Hazlitt’s
work, even if he treated of the things of to-day? Even if he wrote his
opinions gratis and in the form of letters to the editor, it would
presumably be indeed a dull journalistic day when room could be found
for them.
Sarcey, writing in the lighter French vein and being almost as much a
chroniqueur as a critic, might possibly have found opportunity to be
read in an American newspaper, if he could have curbed his independence
of thought. Starting from obscurity, it is a question whether he would
ever have been able to gain opportunity to be read simply as a critic,
for the processes by which newspaper critics are created or evolved seem
to have nothing to do with the possession of education, training, or
ability. In the majority of newspaper offices the function of dramatic
critic devolves by chance or convenience, and frequently goes by
favoritism to some member of the staff with a fondness for the theatre
and an appreciation of free seats. One of New York’s best known dailies
frankly treats theatrical reviewing as nothing more than reportorial
work, to be covered as would be any other news assignment. This
publication and a good many others are far more particular about the
technical equipment of the writers who describe baseball games,
horse-races, and prize-fights, than about the fitness of those who are
to weigh the merits of plays and acting. The ability to write without
offending the advertising theatrical manager seems in the last case to
be the only absolutely essential qualification.
With these things in mind it will be seen that there is little to tempt
any one with ambition to contemplate dramatic criticism as a possible
profession. The uncertainty of employment, the slenderness of return,
and the limitations on freedom of expression would keep even the most
ardent lover of the theatre from thinking of criticism as a life
occupation. Given the education, the experience, the needed judicial
temperament, and the writing ability, all these are no assurance that
opportunity can be found to utilize them.
Of themselves, the conditions that surround the calling of the critic
are enough to account for the absence from the American newspapers of
authoritative criticism. These conditions might be overcome if the
spirit of the times demanded. But there can be no such demand so long as
the press finds it more profitable to reflect the moods, thoughts, and
opinions of the public than to lead and direct them. When the changed
conditions of producing newspapers transferred the control of their
policy from the editorial rooms to the counting-rooms, the expression of
opinion on any subject became of little value compared with catering to
the popular love of sensation and the popular interest in the trivial.
The change does not mean that there is any ignoring of the theatre in
the newspapers. The institution lends itself admirably to modern
newspaper exploitation. Destroying the fascinating mystery which once
shrouded life back of the curtain, for a long time made good copy for
the press. There is no longer any mystery, because the great space that
the newspapers devote to gossip of the theatre and its people has
flooded with publicity every corner of the institution and every event
of their lives. The process has been aided by managers through a perhaps
mistaken idea of the value of the advertising, and by artists for that
reason and for its appeal to their vanity.
Criticism has no place in publicity of this sort, because criticism
concerns itself only with the art and the broad interests of the
theatre. The news reporter is often better qualified to describe the
milk-baths of a stage notoriety than is the ablest critic. With our
newspapers as they are, and with our public as it is, the reportorial
account of the milk-bath is of more value to the newspaper and its
readers than the most brilliant criticism that could be written of an
important event in the art of the theatre.
With “give the people what they want” the prevailing law of press and
theatre, it is idle just now to look for dramatic criticism of value in
our newspapers. We may flatter ourselves that as a people we have a real
interest in theatrical and other arts. We can prove it by the vast sums
we spend on theatres, music, and pictures. With all our proof, we at
heart know that this is not true. Even in the more sensual art of music
we import our standards, in pictures we are governed more by cost than
quality, and in the theatre—note where most of our expenditure goes. In
that institution, with the creation of whose standards we are concerning
ourselves just now, consider the character of what are called “popular
successes,” and observe the short shrift given to most of the efforts
which call for enjoyment of the finer art of the stage through
recognition of that art when it is displayed.
It is no disgrace that we are not an artistic people. Our
accomplishments and our interests are in other fields, where we more
than match the achievements of older civilizations. With us the theatre
is not an institution to which we turn for its literature and its
interpretations of character. We avoid it when it makes any demand on
our thinking powers. We turn to it as a relaxation from the use of those
powers in more material directions. We do not wish to study our stage,
its methods and its products. We ask it only to divert us. This is the
general attitude of the American to the theatre, and the exceptions are
few.
In these conditions it is not strange that we have no scholarly critics
to help in establishing standards for our theatre, or that there is
little demand for real criticism, least of all in the daily press. As we
grow to be an older and more leisurely country, when our masses cease to
find in the crudities of the moving-picture their ideal of the drama,
and when our own judgments become more refined, we shall need the real
critic, and even the daily press will find room for his criticisms and
reward for his experience, ability, and judgment.
The province and profit of our newspapers lie in interesting their
readers. Analysis of artistic endeavor is not interesting to a people
who have scant time and little inclination for any but practical and
diverting things. Until the people demand it and the conditions that
surround the critic improve, what passes for criticism in our daily
press is not likely to increase in quantity or improve in quality.
THE HUMOR OF THE COLORED SUPPLEMENT
BY RALPH BERGENGREN
I
Ten or a dozen years ago,—the exact date is here immaterial,—an
enterprising newspaper publisher conceived the idea of appealing to what
is known as the American “sense of humor” by printing a so-called comic
supplement in colors. He chose Sunday as of all days the most lacking in
popular amusements, carefully restricted himself to pictures without
humor and color without beauty, and presently inaugurated a new era in
American journalism. The colored supplement became an institution. No
Sunday is complete without it—not because its pages invariably delight,
but because, like flies in summer, there is no screen that will
altogether exclude them. A newspaper without a color press hardly
considers itself a newspaper, and the smaller journals are utterly
unmindful of the kindness of Providence in putting the guardian angel,
Poverty, outside their portals. Sometimes, indeed, they think to outwit
this kindly interference by printing a syndicated comic page without
color; and mercy is thus served in a half portion, for, uncolored, the
pictures are inevitably about twice as attractive. Some print them
without color, but on pink paper. Others rejoice, as best they may, in a
press that will reproduce at least a fraction of the original discord.
One and all they unite vigorously, as if driven by a perverse and
cynical intention, to prove the American sense of humor a thing of
national shame and degradation. Fortunately the public has so little to
say about its reading matter that one may fairly suspend judgment.
For, after all, what is the sense of humor upon which every man prides
himself, as belonging only to a gifted minority? Nothing more nor less
than a certain mental quickness, alert to catch the point of an anecdote
or to appreciate the surprise of a new and unexpected point of view
toward an old and familiar phenomenon. Add together these gifted
minorities, and each nation reaches what is fallaciously termed the
national sense of humor—an English word, incidentally, for which
D’Israeli was unable to find an equivalent in any other language, and
which is in itself simply a natural development of the critical faculty,
born of a present need of describing what earlier ages had taken for
granted. The jovial porter and his charming chance acquaintances, the
three ladies of Bagdad, enlivened conversation with a kind of humor,
carefully removed from the translation of commerce and the public
libraries, for which they needed no descriptive noun, but which may
nevertheless be fairly taken as typical of that city in the day of the
Caliph Haroun.
The Middle Ages rejoiced in a similar form of persiflage, and the
present day in France, Germany, England, or America, for example,
inherits it,—minus its too juvenile indecency,—in the kind of pleasure
afforded by these comic supplements. Their kinship with the lower
publications of European countries is curiously evident to whoever has
examined them. Vulgarity, in fact, speaks the same tongue in all
countries, talks, even in art-ruled France, with the same crude
draughtsmanship, and usurps universally a province that Emerson declared
“far better than wit for a poet or writer.” In its expression and
enjoyment no country can fairly claim the dubious superiority. All are
on the dead level of that surprising moment when the savage had ceased
to be dignified and man had not yet become rational. Men, indeed, speak
freely and vain-gloriously of their national sense of humor; but they
are usually unconscious idealists. For the comic cut that amuses the
most stupid Englishman may be shifted entire into an American comic
supplement; the “catastrophe joke” of the American comic weekly of the
next higher grade is stolen in quantity to delight the readers of
similar but more economical publications in Germany; the lower humor of
France, barring the expurgations demanded by Anglo-Saxon prudery, is
equally transferable; and the average American often examines on Sunday
morning, without knowing it, an international loan-exhibit.
Humor, in other words, is cosmopolitan, reduced, since usage insists on
reducing it, at this lowest imaginable level, to such obvious and
universal elements that any intellect can grasp their combinations. And
at its highest it is again cosmopolitan, like art; like art, a
cultivated characteristic, no more spontaneously natural than a “love of
nature.” It is an insult to the whole line of English and American
humorists—Sterne, Thackeray, Dickens, Meredith, Twain, Holmes, Irving,
and others of a distinguished company—to include as humor what is merely
the crude brutality of human nature, mocking at grief and laughing
boisterously at physical deformity. And in these Sunday comics Humor,
stolen by vandals from her honest, if sometimes rough-and-ready,
companionship, thrusts a woe-be-gone visage from the painted canvas of
the national side-show, and none too poor to “shy a brick” at her.
At no period in the world’s history has there been a steadier output of
so-called humor—especially in this country. The simple idea of printing
a page of comic pictures has produced families. The very element of
variety has been obliterated by the creation of types: a confusing
medley of impossible countrymen, mules, goats, German-Americans and
their irreverent progeny, specialized children with a genius for
annoying their elders, white-whiskered elders with a genius for playing
practical jokes on their grandchildren, policemen, Chinamen, Irishmen,
negroes, inhuman conceptions of the genus tramp, boy inventors whose
inventions invariably end in causing somebody to be mirthfully spattered
with paint or joyously torn to pieces by machinery, bright boys with a
talent for deceit, laziness, or cruelty, and even the beasts of the
jungle dehumanized to the point of practical joking. _Mirabile
dictu!_—some of these things have even been dramatized.
With each type the reader is expected to become personally
acquainted,—to watch for its coming on Sunday mornings, happily
wondering with what form of inhumanity the author will have been able to
endow his brainless manikins. And the authors are often men of
intelligence, capable here and there of a bit of adequate drawing and an
idea that is honestly and self-respectingly provocative of laughter.
Doubtless they are often ashamed of their product; but the demand of the
hour is imperative. The presses are waiting. They, too, are both quick
and heavy. And the cry of the publisher is for “fun” that no intellect
in all his heterogeneous public shall be too dull to appreciate. We see,
indeed, the outward manifestation of a curious paradox: humor prepared
and printed for the extremely dull, and—what is still more
remarkable—excused by grown men, capable of editing newspapers, on the
ground that it gives pleasure to children.
Reduced to first principles, therefore, it is not humor, but simply a
supply created in answer to a demand, hastily produced by machine
methods and hastily accepted by editors too busy with other editorial
duties to examine it intelligently. Under these conditions “humor” is
naturally conceived as something preëminently quick; and so quickness
predominates. Somebody is always hitting somebody else with a club;
somebody is always falling downstairs, or out of a balloon, or over a
cliff, or into a river, a barrel of paint, a basket of eggs, a
convenient cistern, or a tub of hot water. The comic cartoonists have
already exhausted every available substance into which one can fall, and
are compelled to fall themselves into a veritable ocean of vain
repetition. They have exhausted everything by which one can be blown up.
They have exhausted everything by which one can be knocked down or run
over. And if the victim is never actually killed in these mirthful
experiments, it is obviously because he would then cease to be
funny—which is very much the point of view of the Spanish Inquisition,
the cat with a mouse, or the American Indian with a captive. But respect
for property, respect for parents, for law, for decency, for truth, for
beauty, for kindliness, for dignity, or for honor, are killed, without
mercy. Morality alone, in its restricted sense of sexual relations, is
treated with courtesy, although we find throughout the accepted theory
that marriage is a union of uncongenial spirits, and the chart of petty
marital deceit is carefully laid out and marked for whoever is likely to
respond to endless unconscious suggestions. Sadly must the American
child sometimes be puzzled while comparing his own grandmother with the
visiting mother-in-law of the colored comic.
II
Lest this seem a harsh, even an unkind inquiry into the innocent
amusements of other people, a few instances may be mentioned, drawn from
the Easter Sunday output of papers otherwise both respectable and
unrespectable; papers, moreover, depending largely on syndicated humor
that may fairly be said to have reached a total circulation of several
million readers. We have, to begin with, two rival versions of a
creation that made the originator famous, and that chronicle the
adventures of a small boy whose name and features are everywhere
familiar. Often these adventures, in the original youngster, have been
amusing, and amusingly seasoned with the salt of legitimately absurd
phraseology. But the pace is too fast, even for the originator. The
imitator fails invariably to catch the spirit of them, and in this
instance is driven to an ancient subterfuge.
To come briefly to an unpleasant point: an entire page is devoted to
showing the reader how the boy was made ill by smoking his father’s
cigars. Incidentally he falls downstairs. Meanwhile, his twin is
rejoicing the readers of another comic supplement by spoiling a wedding
party; it is the minister who first comes to grief, and is stood on his
head, the boy who, later, is quite properly thrashed by an angry
mother—and it is all presumably very delightful and a fine example for
the imitative genius of other children. Further, we meet a mule who
kicks a policeman and whose owner is led away to the lockup; a manicured
vacuum who slips on a banana peel, crushes the box containing his
fiancée’s Easter bonnet, and is assaulted by her father (he, after the
manner of comic fathers, having just paid one hundred dollars for the
bonnet out of a plethoric pocketbook); a nondescript creature,
presumably human, who slips on another banana peel and knocks over a
citizen, who in turn knocks over a policeman, and is also marched off to
undeserved punishment. We see the German-American child covering his
father with water from a street gutter; another child deluging his
parent with water from a hose; another teasing his younger brother and
sister. To keep the humor of the banana peel in countenance, we find the
picture of a fat man accidentally sitting down on a tack; he exclaims,
“Ouch!” throws a basket of eggs into the air, and they come down on the
head of the boy who arranged the tacks. We see two white boys beating a
little negro over the head with a plank (the hardness of the negro’s
skull here affording the humorous _motif_), and we see an idiot blowing
up a mule with dynamite. Lunacy, in short, could go no further than this
pandemonium of undisguised coarseness and brutality—the humor offered on
Easter Sunday morning by leading American newspapers for the edification
of American readers.
And every one of the countless creatures, even to the poor, maligned
dumb animals, is saying something. To the woeful extravagance of foolish
acts must be added an equal extravagance of foolish words: “Out with
you, intoxicated rowdy!” “Shut up!” “Skidoo!” “They’ve set the dog on
me.” “Hee-haw.” “My uncle had it tooken in Hamburg.” “Dat old gentleman
will slip on dem banana skins,” “Little Buster got all that was coming
to him.” “Aw, shut up!” “Y-e-e-e G-o-d-s!” “Ouch!” “Golly, dynamite am
powerful stuff.” “I am listening to vat der vild vaves is sedding.” “I
don’t think Pa and I will ever get along together until he gets rid of
his conceit.” “Phew!”
The brightness of this repartee could be continued indefinitely;
profanity, of course, is indicated by dashes and exclamation points; a
person who has fallen overboard says, “Blub!” concussion is visibly
represented by stars; “biff” and “bang” are used, according to taste, to
accompany a blow on the nose or an explosion of dynamite.
From this brief summary it may be seen how few are the fundamental
conceptions that supply the bulk of almost the entire output, and in
these days of syndicated ideas a comparatively small body of men produce
the greater part of it. Physical pain is the most glaringly omnipresent
of these motifs; it is counted upon invariably to amuse the average
humanity of our so-called Christian civilization. The entire group of
Easter Sunday pictures constitutes a saturnalia of prearranged accidents
in which the artist is never hampered by the exigencies of logic;
machinery in which even the presupposed poorest intellect might be
expected to detect the obvious flaw accomplishes its evil purpose with
inevitable accuracy; jails and lunatic asylums are crowded with new
inmates; the policeman always uses his club or revolver; the parents
usually thrash their offspring at the end of the performance; household
furniture is demolished, clothes ruined, and unsalable eggs broken by
the dozen. Deceit is another universal concept of humor, which combines
easily with the physical pain _motif_; and mistaken identity, in which
the juvenile idiot disguises himself and deceives his parents in various
ways, is another favorite resort of the humorists. The paucity of
invention is hardly less remarkable than the willingness of the
inventors to sign their products, or the willingness of editors to
publish them. But the age is notoriously one in which editors underrate
and insult the public intelligence.
Doubtless there are some to applaud the spectacle,—the imitative
spirits, for example, who recently compelled a woman to seek the
protection of a police department because of the persecution of a gang
of boys and young men shouting “hee-haw” whenever she appeared on the
street; the rowdies whose exploits figure so frequently in metropolitan
newspapers; or that class of adults who tell indecent stories at the
dinner-table and laugh joyously at their wives’ efforts to turn the
conversation. But the Sunday comic goes into other homes than these, and
is handed to their children by parents whose souls would shudder at the
thought of a dime novel. Alas, poor parents! That very dime novel as a
rule holds up ideals of bravery and chivalry, rewards good and punishes
evil, offers at the worst a temptation to golden adventuring, for which
not one child in a million will ever attempt to surmount the obvious
obstacles. It is no easy matter to become an Indian fighter, pirate, or
detective; the dream is, after all, a day-dream, tinctured with the
beautiful color of old romance, and built on eternal qualities that the
world has rightfully esteemed worthy of emulation. And in place of it
the comic supplement, like that other brutal horror, the juvenile comic
story, which goes on its immoral way unnoticed, raises no high ambition,
but devotes itself to “mischief made easy.” Hard as it is to become an
Indian fighter, any boy has plenty of opportunity to throw stones at his
neighbor’s windows. And on any special occasion, such, for example, as
Christmas or Washington’s Birthday, almost the entire ponderous machine
is set in motion to make reverence and ideals ridiculous. Evil example
is strong in proportion as it is easy to imitate. The state of mind that
accepts the humor of the comic weekly is the same as that which shudders
at Ibsen, and smiles complacently at the musical comedy, with its open
acceptance of the wild-oats theory, and its humorous exposition of a
kind of wild oats that youth may harvest without going out of its own
neighborhood.
In all this noisy, explosive, garrulous pandemonium one finds here and
there a moment of rest and refreshment—the work of the few pioneers of
decency and decorum brave enough to bring their wares to the noisome
market and lucky enough to infuse their spirit of refinement, art, and
genuine humor into its otherwise hopeless atmosphere. Preëminent among
them stands the inventor of “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” a man of
genuine pantomimic humor, charming draughtsmanship, and an excellent
decorative sense of color, who has apparently studied his medium and
makes the best of it. And with him come Peter Newell, Grace G.
Weiderseim, and Condé,—now illustrating _Uncle Remus_ for a Sunday
audience,—whose pictures in some of the Sunday papers are a delightful
and self-respecting proof of the possibilities of this type of
journalism. Out of the noisy streets, the cheap restaurants with their
unsteady-footed waiters and avalanches of soup and crockery, out of the
slums, the quarreling families, the prisons and the lunatic asylums, we
step for a moment into the world of childish fantasy, closing the iron
door behind us and trying to shut out the clamor of hooting mobs, the
laughter of imbeciles, and the crash of explosives. After all, there is
no reason why children should not have their innocent amusement on
Sunday morning; but there seems to be every reason why the average
editor of the weekly comic supplement should be given a course in art,
literature, common sense, and Christianity.
THE AMERICAN GRUB STREET
BY JAMES H. COLLINS
I
New York’s theatres, cafés, and hotels, with many of her industries, are
supported by a floating population. The provinces know this, and it
pleases them mightily. But how many of the actual inhabitants of New
York know of the large floating population that is associated with her
magazines, newspapers, and publishing interests?—a floating population
of the arts, mercenaries of pen and typewriter, brush and camera, living
for the most part in the town and its suburbs, yet leading an unattached
existence, that, to the provincial accustomed to dealing with life on a
salary, seems not only curious but extremely precarious—as it often is.
The free-lance writer and artist abound in the metropolis, and with them
is associated a motley free-lance crew that has no counterpart elsewhere
on this continent. New York’s “Grub Street” is one of the truest
indications of her metropolitan character. In other American cities the
newspaper is written, illustrated, and edited by men and women on
salaries, as are the comparatively few magazines and the technical press
covering our country’s material activities. But in New York, while
hundreds of editors, writers, and artists also rely upon a stated,
definite stipend, several times as many more live without salaried
connections, sometimes by necessity, but as often by choice. These are
the dwellers in Grub Street.
This thoroughfare has no geographical definition. Many of the natives of
Manhattan Island know as little of it as do the truck loads of visitors
“seeing New York,” who cross and recross it unwittingly. Grub Street
begins nowhere and ends nowhere; yet between these vague terminals it
runs to all points of the compass, turns sharp corners, penetrates
narrow passageways, takes its pedestrians up dark old stairways one
moment and through sumptuous halls of steel and marble the next,
touching along the way more diverse interests than any of the actual
streets of Manhattan, and embracing ideals, tendencies, influences, and
life-currents that permeate the nation’s whole material and spiritual
existence. Greater Grub Street is so unobtrusive that a person with no
affair to transact therein might dwell a quarter-century in New York and
never discover it; yet it is likewise so palpable and vast to its
denizens that by no ordinary circumstances would any of them be likely
to explore all its infinite arteries, veins, and ganglia.
Not long ago there arrived on Park Row for the first time in his life a
newspaper reporter of conspicuous ability along a certain line. In the
West he had made a name for his knack at getting hold of corporate
reports and court decisions several days in advance of rival papers.
Once, in Chicago, by climbing over the ceiling of a jury-room, he was
able to publish the verdict in a sensational murder trial a half-hour
before it had been brought in to the judge. A man invaluable in
following the devious windings of the day’s history as it must be
written in newspapers, he had come to Park Row as the ultimate field of
development for his especial talent. To demonstrate what he had done, he
brought along a thick sheaf of introductory letters from Western
editors. There was one for every prominent editor and publisher in the
New York newspaper field, yet after all had been delivered it seemed to
avail nothing. Nobody had offered him a situation.
“The way to get along in New York is to go out and get the stuff,”
explained a free lance whom he fell in with in a William Street
restaurant. “Get copy they can’t turn down—deliver the goods.”
In that dull summer season all the papers were filled with gossip about
a subscription book that had been sold at astonishing prices to that
unfailing resource of newspapers, the “smart set.” Charges of blackmail
flew through the city. Official investigation had failed to reveal
anything definite about the work, which was said to be in process of
printing. In twenty-four hours the newcomer from the West appeared in
the office of a managing editor with specimen pages of the book itself.
Where he had got them nobody knew. No one cared. They were manifestly
genuine, and within two hours a certain sensational newspaper scored a
“beat.” At last accounts he was specializing in the same line, obtaining
the unobtainable and selling it where it would bring the best price.
This is one type of free lance.
At the other end of the scale may be cited the all-around scientific
worker who came to the metropolis several years ago, after long
experience in the departments at Washington. Lack of influence there had
thrown him on the world at forty. Accustomed to living on the rather
slender salary that goes with a scientific position, and knowing no
other way of getting a livelihood, he set out to find in New York a
place similar to that he had held in the capital. He is a man who has
followed the whole trend of modern scientific progress as a practical
investigator—a deviser of experiments and experimental apparatus, a
skilled technical draughtsman, a writer on scientific subjects, and a
man of field experience in surveying and research that has taken him all
over the world. New York offered him nothing resembling the work he had
done in Washington; but in traveling about the town among scientific and
technical publishers he got commissions to write an article or two for
an encyclopedia. These led him into encyclopedic illustration as well,
and then he took charge of a whole section of the work, gathering his
materials outside, writing and drawing at home, and visiting the
publisher’s office only to deliver the finished copy. Encyclopedia
writing and illustration has since become his specialty. His wide
experience and knowledge fit him to cope with diverse subjects, and he
earns an income which, if not nearly so large as that of the free-lance
reporter, is quite as satisfactory as his Washington salary. As soon as
one encyclopedia is finished in New York, another is begun, and from
publisher to publisher go a group of encyclopedic free-lances, who will
furnish an article on integral calculus or the Vedic pantheon, with
diagrams and illustrations—and very good articles at that.
II
Who but a Balzac will take a census of Greater Grub Street, enumerating
its aristocrats, its well-to-do obscure bourgeois, its Bohemians, its
rakes and evil-doers, its artisans and struggling lower classes? Among
its citizens are the materials of a newer _Comédie Humaine_. The two
personalities outlined above merely set a vague intellectual boundary to
this world. In its many kinds and stations of workers Grub Street is as
irreducible as nebulæ. Its aristocracy is to be found any time in that
“Peerage” of Grub Street, the contents pages of the better magazines,
where are arrayed the names of successful novelists, essayists, and
short-story writers, of men and women who deal with specialties such as
travel, historical studies, war correspondence, nature interpretation,
sociology, politics, and every other side of life and thought; and here,
too, are enlisted their morganatic relatives, the poets and versifiers,
and their showy, prosperous kindred, the illustrators, who may be
summoned from Grub Street to paint a portrait at Newport. This peerage
is real, for no matter upon what stratum of Grub Street each newcomer
may ultimately find his level of ability, this is the goal that was
aimed at in the beginning. This is the Dream.
Staid, careful burghers of the arts, producing their good, dull, staple
necessities in screed and picture, live about the lesser magazines, the
women’s periodicals, the trade and technical press, the syndicates that
supply “Sunday stuff” to newspapers all over the land, the nameless,
mediocre publications that are consumed by our rural population in
million editions. The Bohemian element is found writing “on space” for
newspapers this month, furnishing the press articles of a theatre or an
actress the next, running the gamut of the lesser magazines feverishly,
flitting hither and thither, exhausting its energies with wasteful
rapidity, and never learning the business tact and regularity that keep
the burgher in comfort and give his name a standing at the savings bank.
The criminal class of Grub Street includes the peddler of false news,
the adapter of other men’s ideas, and the swindler who copies published
articles and pictures outright, trusting to luck to elude the editorial
police. The individual in this stratum has a short career and not a
merry one; but the class persists with the persistence of the parasite.
Grub Street’s artisans are massed about the advertising agencies,
producing the plausible arguments put forth for the world of
merchandise, and the many varieties of illustration that go with them;
while the nameless driftwood which floats about the whole thoroughfare
includes no one knows how many hundreds of aspirants whose talents do
not suffice for any of these classes, together with the peddler of other
men’s wares on commission, who perhaps ekes out a life by entering as a
super at the theatres, the artists’ models, both men and women, who pose
in summer and are away with a theatrical company in winter, the dullard,
the drone, the ne’er-do-well, the palpable failure. At one end, Art’s
chosen sons and daughters; at the other, her content, misguided dupes.
The free lance is bred naturally in New York, and thrives in its
atmosphere, because the market for his wares is stable and infinitely
varied. The demand he satisfies could be appeased by no other system.
The very life of metropolitan publishing lies in the search for new men
and variety. Publishers spend great sums upon the winnowing machinery
that threshes over what comes to their editors’ desks, and no editor in
the metropolis grudges the time necessary to talk with those who call in
person and have ideas good enough to carry them past his assistants.
Publicly, the editorial tribe may lament the many hours spent yearly in
this winnowing process. Yet every experienced editor in New York has his
own story of the stranger, uncouth, unpromising, unready of speech, who
stole in late one afternoon and seemed to have almost nothing in him,
yet who afterwards became the prolific Scribbler or the great D’Auber.
Not an editor of consequence but who, if he knew that to-morrow this
ceaseless throng of free lances, good, bad, and impossible, had declared
a Chinese boycott upon him and would visit his office no more, would
regard it as the gravest of crises.
New York provides a market so wide for the wares of the free lance that
almost anything in the way of writing or picture can eventually be sold,
if it is up to a certain standard of mediocrity. A trained salesman
familiar with values in the world of merchandise would consider this
market one of the least exacting, most constant, and remunerative. And
it is a market to be regarded, on the whole, in terms of merchandise.
Not genius or talent sets the standards, but ordinary good workmanship.
Magazines are simply the apex of the demand—that corner of the mart
where payment is perhaps highest and the byproduct of reputation
greatest. For each of the fortunate workers whose names figure in the
magazine peerage, there are virtually hundreds who produce for
purchasers and publications quite unknown to the general public, and
often their incomes are equal to those of the established fiction writer
or popular illustrator.
New York has eight Sunday newspapers that buy matter for their own
editions and supply it in duplicate to other Sunday newspapers
throughout the country under a syndicate arrangement. Perhaps an average
of five hundred columns of articles, stories, interviews, children’s
stuff, household and feminine gossip, humor, verse, and miscellany, with
illustrations, are produced every week for this demand alone; and at
least fifty per cent of the yearly $150,000 that represents its lowest
value to the producers is paid to free-lance workers. The rest goes to
men on salary who write Sunday matter at space rates. This item is
wholly distinct from the equally great mass of Sunday stuff written for
the same papers by salaried men. Several independent syndicates also
supply a similar class of matter to papers throughout the United States,
for both Sunday and daily use. This syndicate practice has, within the
past ten years, made New York a veritable journalistic provider for the
rest of the nation. The metropolis supplies the Sunday reading of the
American people, largely because it has the resources of Grub Street to
draw upon. Syndicate matter is cheaper than the provincial product, it
is true; but not price alone is accountable for this supremacy of the
syndicate. By the side of the workmanlike stories, articles, skits, and
pictures supplied by Greater Grub Street, the productions of a
provincial newspaper staff on salary grow monotonous in their sameness,
and reveal themselves by their less skillful handling.
The Sunday-reading industry provides a market, not only for writers and
artists, but also for photographers, caricaturists, cartoonists, makers
of squibs and jokes, experts in fashions, devisers of puzzles, men and
women who sell ideas for novel Sunday supplements, such as those printed
in sympathetic inks, and the like. It is a peculiarity of our country
worth noting, that all our published humor finds its outlet through the
newspapers. Though England, Germany, France, and other countries have a
humorous press distinctly apart, the United States has only one humorous
journal that may be called national in tone. An overwhelming tide of
caricature and humor sweeps through our daily papers, but the larger
proportion is found in the illustrated comic sheets of the leading New
York dailies; and these are syndicated in a way that gives them a
tremendous national circulation. The Sunday comic sheet, whatever one
wishes to say of its quality, was built in Greater Grub Street, and
there, to-day, its foundations rest.
In Grub Street, too, dwells the army of workers who furnish what
might be called the cellulose of our monthly and weekly
publications—interviews, literary gossip, articles of current news
interest, matter interesting to women, to children, to every class
and occupation. As there are magazines for the servant girl and
clerk, so there are magazines for the millionaire with a country
estate, the business man studying system and methods, the woman with
social or literary aspirations, the family planning travel or a
vacation. To-day it is a sort of axiom in the publishing world that
a new magazine, to succeed, must have a new specialty. Usually this
will be a material one, for our current literature deals with things
rather than thought; it is healthy but never top-heavy. Each new
magazine interest discovered is turned over to Greater Grub Street
for development, and here it is furnished with matter to fit the new
point of view, drawings and photographs to make it plain, editors to
guide, and sometimes a publisher to send it to market.
Then come, rank on rank, the trade and technical periodicals, of which
hundreds are issued weekly and monthly in New York. These touch the
whole range of industry and commerce. They deal with banking, law,
medicine, insurance, manufacturing, and the progress of merchandise of
every kind through the wholesale, jobbing, and retailing trades, with
invention and mechanical science, with crude staples and finished
commodities, with the great main channels of production and distribution
and the little by-corners of the mart. Some of them are valuable
publishing properties; more are insignificant; yet each has to go to
press regularly, and all must be filled with their own particular kinds
of news, comment, technical articles, and pictures. Theirs is a
difficult point of view for the free lance, and on this account much of
their contents is written by salaried editors and assistants.
Contributions come, too, from engineers, scientists, bankers, attorneys,
physicians, and specialists in every part of the country. Foremen and
superintendents and mechanics in some trades send in roughly outlined
diagrams and descriptions that enable the quick-witted editors to see
“how the blamed thing works” and write the finished article. The
American trade press is still in an early stage of development on its
literary side. It has grown up largely within the past two decades, and
still lacks literary workmanship. To hundreds of free-lance workers this
field is now either unknown or underestimated. Yet year after year men
disappear from Park Row and the round of Magazinedom, to be found, if
any one would take the trouble to look them up, among the trade
journals. Some of the great properties in this class belong to
journalists who saw an opportunity a decade ago, and grasped it.
III
The trade journals lead directly into the field of advertising, which
has grown into a phenomenal outlet for free lance energies in the past
ten years, and is still growing at a rate that promises to make it the
dominant market of Grub Street. A glance through the advertising
sections of the seventy-five or more monthly and weekly magazines
published in New York reveals only a fraction of this demand, for a mass
of writing and illustration many times greater is produced for
catalogues, booklets, folders, circulars, advertising in the religious,
agricultural, and trade press, and other purposes. Much of it is the
work of men on salary, yet advertising takes so many ingenious forms and
is so constantly striving for the novel and excellent, that almost every
writer and illustrator of prominence receives in the course of the year
commissions for special advertising work, and fat commissions, too.
Often the fine drawing one sees as the centre of attraction in a
magazine advertisement is the work of a man or woman of reputation among
the readers of magazines, delivered with the understanding that it is to
be published unsigned.
The advertising demand is divided into two classes—that represented by
business firms which prepare their own publicity, and that for the
advertising agencies which prepare and forward to periodicals the
advertising of many business houses, receiving for their service a
commission from the publishers. It is among the latter especially that
the free lance finds his market, for the agencies handle a varied mass
of work and are continually calling in men who can furnish fresh ideas.
One of the leading advertising agencies keeps in a great file the names
and addresses of several hundred free-lance workers—writers, sculptors,
illustrators, portrait painters, translators, news and illustrating
photographers, fashion designers, authorities in silver and virtu,
book-reviewers, journalists with such specialties as sports, social
news, and the markets. Each is likely to be called on for something in
his particular line as occasions arise.
This concern, for example, may receive a commission to furnish a
handsomely bound miniature book on servants’ liveries for a clothing
manufacturer, or a history of silver plate to be privately printed and
distributed among the patrons of a great jewelry house. For a simple
folder to advertise a brand of whiskey, perhaps, the sporting editor of
a leading daily newspaper is asked to compile information about
international yacht-racing. From Union Square may be seen a large wall,
upon which is painted a quaint landscape of gigantic proportions. It is
a bit of thoroughly artistic design, fitting into the general color
scheme of the square, and its attractiveness gives it minor advertising
value for the firm that has taken an original way of masking a blank
wall. This decoration was painted from a small design, made for the
above advertising agency by a painter of prominence. The same agency, in
compiling a catalogue of cash registers some time ago, referred to their
utilitarian ugliness of design. The cash register manufacturers
protested that these were the best designs they had been able to make,
whereupon the advertising agency commissioned four sculptors, who
elaborated dainty cash-register cases in the _art nouveau_ manner, for
installation in cafés, milliners’ shops, and other fine establishments.
Advertising requires versatility of a high order. A newspaper writer, so
long as he makes his articles interesting to the widest public, is not
required to give too strict attention to technicalities—he writes upon
this subject to-day and upon one at the opposite pole to-morrow. A
writer for a trade journal, on the other hand, need not give pains to
human interest if his technical grasp of the iron market, the
haberdashery trade, or the essentials of machine-shop practice is sure.
Moreover, each year’s experience in writing for a trade journal adds to
his knowledge of its subject and makes his work so much the surer and
simpler. But the writer of advertising must combine human interest with
strict accuracy; his subject is constantly changing, unless he is a
specialist in a certain line, taking advertising commissions at
intervals. To-day he studies the methods of making cigars and the many
different kinds of tobacco that enter therein; to-morrow he writes a
monograph on enameled tin cans, investigating the processes of making
them in the factory; and the day after that his topic may be breakfast
foods, taking him into investigations of starch, gluten, digestive
functions, diet and health, and setting him upon a weary hunt for
synonyms to describe the “rich nutty flavor” that all breakfast foods
are said to have. All the illustrative work of an advertising artist
must be so true to detail that it will pass the eyes of men who spend
their lives making the things he pictures. The Camusots and Matifats no
longer provide costly orgies for Grub Street, sitting by meekly to enjoy
the flow of wit and banter. They now employ criticism in moulding their
literature of business. It was one of them who, difficult to please in
circulars, looked over the manuscript submitted by an advertising free
lance with more approval than was his custom. “This is not bad,” he
commented; “not bad at all—and yet—I have seen all these words used
before.”
An interesting new development of advertising is the business
periodical, a journal published by a large manufacturer, usually, and
sent out monthly to retail agents or his consuming public. In its pages
are printed articles about the manufacturer’s product, descriptions of
its industrial processes, news of the trade, and miscellany. Many of
these periodicals are extremely interesting for themselves. There must
be dozens of them in New York—none of the newspaper directories list
them. Writers who are not especially familiar with the product with
which they deal often furnish a style of matter for them that is valued
for its fresh point of view and freedom from trade and technical
phraseology. These publications range from journals of a dozen pages,
issued on the “every little while” plan for the retail trade of a rubber
hose manufacturer, to the monthly magazine which a stocking jobber mails
to thousands of youngsters all over the land to keep them loyal to his
goods.
This, then, is the market in its main outlines. But a mass of detail has
been eliminated. In groups large and small there are the poster artists
who work for theatrical managers and lithographers; the strange, obscure
folk who write the subterranean dime-novel stories of boyhood; the
throngs of models who go from studio to studio, posing at the uniform
rate of fifty cents an hour whether they work constantly or seldom; the
engravers who have made an art of retouching half-tone plates; the great
body of crafts-and-arts workers which has sprung up in the past five
years and which leads the free-lance life in studios, selling pottery,
decorated china, wood, and metal work to rich patrons; the serious
painters whose work is found in exhibitions, and the despised “buckeye”
painter who paints for the department stores and cheap picture shops;
the etchers, the portrait painters, and the “spotknockers” who lay in
the tones of the crude “crayon portrait” for popular consumption—these
and a multitude of others inhabit Greater Grub Street, knowing no
regularity of employment, of hours, or of income.
IV
While its opportunities are without conceivable limitation, Grub Street
is not a thoroughfare littered with currency, but is paved with
cobblestones as hard as any along the other main avenues of New York’s
life and energy. The Great Man of the Provinces, landing at Cortlandt or
Twenty-third Street after an apprenticeship at newspaper work in a minor
city, steps into a world strangely different from the one he has known.
For, just to be a police reporter elsewhere is to be a journalist, and
journalism is the same as literature, and literature is honorable, and a
little mysterious, and altogether different from the management of a
stove foundry, or the proprietorship of a grocery house, or any other of
the overwhelmingly material things that make up American life. Times
have not greatly changed since Lucien de Rubempré was the lion of Madame
de Bargeton’s salon at Angoulême, and this is a matter they seem to have
ordered no better in provincial France. To be a writer or artist of any
calibre elsewhere breeds a form of homage and curiosity and a certain
sure social standing. But New York strikes a chill over the Great Man of
the Provinces, because it is nothing at all curious or extraordinary for
one to write or draw in a community where thousands live by these
pursuits. They carry no homage or social standing on their face, and the
editorial world is even studied in its uncongeniality toward the
newcomer, because he is so fearfully likely to prove one of the
ninety-nine in every hundred aspirants who cannot draw or write well
enough. The ratio that holds in the mass of impossible manuscript and
sketches that pours into every editorial office is also the ratio of the
living denizens of Grub Street. The Great Man of the Provinces is
received on the assumption that he is unavailable, with thanks, and the
hope that he will not consider this a reflection upon his literary or
artistic merit.
So he finds himself altogether at sea for a while. No Latin Quarter
welcomes him, for this community has no centre. His estimates of
magazine values, formed at a distance, are quickly altered. Many lines
of work he had never dreamed of, and channels for selling it, come to
light day by day. To pass the building where even _Munsey’s_ is
published gives him a thrill the first time; yet after a few months in
New York he finds that the great magazines, instead of being nearer, are
really farther away than they were in the provinces. Of the other
workers he meets, few aspire to them, while of this few only a fraction
get into their pages. He calls on editors, perhaps, and finds them a
strange, non-committal caste, talking very much like their own rejection
slips. No editor will definitely give him a commission, even if he
submits an idea that seems good, but can at most be brought to admit
under pressure that, if the Great Man were to find himself in that
neighborhood with the idea all worked up, the editor _might_ be
interested in seeing it, perhaps even reading it—yet he must not
understand this as in any way binding ... the magazine is very full just
at present ... hadn’t he better try the newspapers, now? For there are
more blanks than prizes walking the Grub Street paving, and persons of
unsound minds have been known to take to literature as a last resort,
and the most dangerous person to the editor is not a rejected
contributor at all, but one who has been accepted once and sees a gleam
of a chance that he may be again.
If the Great Man really has “stuff” in him, he stops calling on editors
and submits his offerings by mail. Even if he attains print in a worthy
magazine, he may work a year without seeing its notable contributors, or
its minor ones, or its handmaidens, or even its office-boy. Two men
jostled one another on Park Row one morning as they were about to enter
the same newspaper building, apologized, and got into the elevator
together. There a third introduced them, when it turned out that one had
been illustrating the work of the other for two years, and each had
wished to know the other, but never got around to it. An individual
circle of friends is easily formed in Grub Street, but the community as
a whole lives far and wide and has no coherence.
What ability or skill the Great Man brought from his province may be
only the foundation for real work. There will surely be extensive
revising of ideals and methods. A story is told of a poet who came to
the metropolis with a completed epic. This found no acceptance, so after
cursing the stupidity of the public and the publishers, he took to
writing “Sunday stuff.” Soon the matter-of-fact attitude of the workers
around him, with the practical view of the market he acquired, led him
to doubt the literary value of the work he had done in the sentimental
atmosphere of his native place. Presently a commission to write a column
of humor a week came to him, and he cut his epic into short lengths,
tacked a squib on each fragment, and eventually succeeded in printing it
all as humor, at a price many times larger than the historic one brought
by _Paradise Lost_. Another newcomer brought unsalable plays and high
notions of the austerity of the artistic vocation. Three months after
his arrival he was delighted to get a commission to write the handbook a
utilitarian publisher proposed to sell to visitors seeing the
metropolis. This commission not only brought a fair payment for the
manuscript on delivery, but involved a vital secondary consideration.
The title of the work was “Where to Eat in New York,” and its
preparation made it necessary for the author to dine each evening for a
month in a different café at the proprietor’s expense.
This practical atmosphere of Grub Street eventually makes for
development in the writer or artist who has talent. It is an atmosphere
suited to work, for the worker is left alone in the solitude of the
multitude. False ideals and sentimentality fade from his life, and his
style takes on directness and vigor. Greater Grub Street is not given to
reviling the public for lack of ideals or appreciation. The free lance’s
contact with the real literary market, day after day, teaches him that,
as soon as he can produce the manuscript of the great American novel,
there are editors who may be trusted to perceive its merit, and
publishers ready to buy.
V
This free-lance community of the metropolis is housed all over Manhattan
Island, as well as in the suburbs and adjacent country for a hundred
miles or more around. An amusing census of joke-writers and humorists
was made not long ago by a little journal which a New Jersey railroad
publishes in the interest of its suburban passenger traffic. It was
shown, by actual names and places of residence, that more than three
fourths of the writers who keep the suburban joke alive live in Suburbia
themselves.
New York has no Latin Quarter. As her publications are scattered over
the city from Park Row to Forty-second Street, so the dwellings of
free-lance workers are found everywhere above Washington Square. There
are numerous centres, however. Washington Square is one for newspaper
men and women, and in its boarding-houses and apartment hotels are also
found many artists who labor in studios near by. Tenth Street, between
Broadway and Sixth Avenue, has a few studios remaining, surrounded by
the rising tide of the wholesale clothing trade, chief among them being
the Fleischmann Building, next Grace Church, and the old studio building
near Sixth Avenue. More old studios are found in Fourteenth Street; and
around Union Square the new skyscrapers house a prosperous class of
illustrators who do not follow the practice of living with their work.
On the south side of Twenty-third Street, from Broadway to Fourth
Avenue, is a row of old-time studios, and pretty much the whole gridiron
of cross streets between Union and Madison squares has others, old and
new. Thence, Grub Street proceeds steadily uptown until, in the
neighborhood of Central Park, it may be said to have arrived.
Look over the roofs in any of these districts and the toplight hoods may
be seen, always facing north, as though great works were expected from
that point of the compass. Grub Street is the top layer of New York, and
dislikes to be far from the roof. A studio that has been inhabited by a
succession of artists and writers for twenty, thirty, forty years, may
be tenanted to-day by a picturesque young man in slouch hat, loose
neckerchief, and paint-flecked clothes, who eats about at cheap cafés,
and sleeps on a cot that in daytime serves as a lounge under its dusty
Oriental canopy. The latter ornament is the unfailing mark of that kind
of studio, and with it go, in some combination, a Japanese umbrella and
a fish-net. This young man makes advertising pictures, perhaps, or puts
the frames around the half-tone illustrations for a Sunday newspaper. By
that he lives, and for his present fame draws occasional “comics” for
_Life_. But with an eye to Immortality, he paints, so that there are
always sketching trips to be made, and colors to putter with, and art,
sacred art, to talk of in the terms of the technician. Or such an old
studio may shelter some forlorn spinster who ekes out a timid existence
by painting dinner cards or the innumerable whatnots produced and sold
by her class in Grub Street.
In the newer studios are found two methods of working. Prosperous
illustrators, writers, and teachers may prefer a studio in an office
building, where no one is permitted to pass the night, conducting their
affairs with the aid of a stenographer and an office boy. Others live
and work in the newer studios that have been built above Twenty-third
Street in the past decade. Few of the traditions of Bohemia are
preserved by successful men and women. The young man of the Sunday
supplement, and the amateur dauber, once he succeeds as a magazine
illustrator, drops his slouch hat, becomes conventional in dress, and
ceases to imitate outwardly an artistic era that is past. Success brings
him in contact with persons of truer tastes, and he changes to match his
new environment. This is so fundamental in Grub Street that the ability
of any of its denizens may be gauged by the editor’s experienced eye;
the less a given individual dresses like the traditional artist or
writer of the Parisian Latin Quarter, the nearer he is, probably, to
being one.
Women make up a large proportion of the dwellers in Grub Street, and its
open market, holding to no distinctions of sex in payment for acceptable
work, is in their favor. Any of the individual markets offers a fair
field for their work, and in most of them the feminine product is sought
as a foil to the staple masculine.
What is the average Grub Street income? That would be difficult to know,
for the free lance, as a rule, keeps no cash-book. Many workers exist on
earnings no larger than those of a country clergyman, viewed
comparatively from the standpoint of expenses, and among them are men
and women of real ability. Given the magic of business tact, they might
soon double their earnings. Business ability is the secret of monetary
success in Greater Grub Street. One must know where to sell, and also
what to produce. It pays to aim high and get into the currents of the
best demand, where prices are better, terms fairer, and competition an
absolute nullity. Even the cheapest magazines and newspapers pay well
when the free lance knows how to produce for them. Hundreds of workers
are ill paid because they have not the instinct of the compiler.
Scissors are mightier than the pen in this material market; with them
the skillful ones write original articles and books—various information
brought together in a new focus.
While untold thousands of impossible articles drift about the editorial
offices, these editors are looking for what they cannot often describe.
A successful worker in Grub Street divines this need and submits the
thing itself. Often the need is most tangible. For two weeks after the
Martinique disaster the newspapers and syndicates were hunting articles
about volcanoes—not profound treatises, but ordinary workmanlike
accounts such as could be tried out of any encyclopedia. Yet hundreds of
workers, any one of whom might have compiled the needed articles,
continued to send in compositions dealing with abstract subjects, things
far from life and events, and were turned down in the regular routine.
Only a small proportion of free lances ever become successful, but those
who do, achieve success by attention to demand, with the consequence
that most of their work is sold before it is written.
This community is perhaps the most diversified to be found in a national
centre of thought and energy. Paris, London, Munich, Vienna, Rome—each
has the artistic tradition and atmosphere, coming down through the
centuries. But this Grub Street of the new world is wholly material,—a
“boom town” of the arts,—embodying in its brain and heart only
prospects, hopes. Its artistic rating is written plainly in our current
literature. There is real artistic struggle and aspiration in it all,
undoubtedly, but not enough to sweeten the mass.
Greater Grub Street is utilitarian. That which propels it is not Art,
but Advertising—not Clio or Calliope, but Circulation.
JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
BY CHARLES MOREAU HARGER
I
In a recent discussion with a successful business man concerning an
occupation for the business man’s son, a college graduate, some one
suggested: “Set him up with a newspaper. He likes the work and is
capable of success.”
“Nothing in it,” was the prompt reply. “He can make more money with a
clothing store, have less worry and annoyance, and possess the respect
of more persons.”
This response typifies the opinion of many fathers regarding a newspaper
career. It is especially common to the business man in the rural and
semi-rural sections. The dry-goods merchant who has a stock worth twenty
thousand dollars, and makes a profit of from three thousand dollars to
five thousand dollars a year, realizes that the editor’s possessions are
meagre, and believes his income limited. He likewise hears complaints
and criticisms of the paper. Comparing his own placid money-making
course with, what he assumes to be the stormy and unprofitable struggle
of the publisher, he considers the printing business an inferior
occupation.
For this view the old-time editor is largely responsible. For decades it
was his pride to make constant reference to his poverty-stricken
condition, to beg subscribers to bring cord-wood and potatoes on
subscription, to glorify as a philanthropist the farmer who “called
to-day and dropped a dollar in the till.” The poor-editor joke is as
well established as the mother-in-law joke or the lover-and-angry-father
joke, and about as unwarranted; yet it has built up a sentiment, false
in fact and suggestion, often accepted as truth.
To the younger generation, journalism presents another aspect. The
fascination of doing things, of being in the forefront of the world’s
activities, appeals to young men and young women of spirit. Few are they
who do not consider themselves qualified to succeed should they choose
this profession. To the layman it seems so easy and so pleasant to write
the news and comment of the day, to occupy a seat on the stage at public
meetings, to pass the fire-lines unquestioned.
Not until the first piece of copy is handed in does the beginner
comprehend the magnitude of his task or the demand made upon him for
technical skill. When he sees the editor slash, blue-pencil, and
rearrange his story, he appreciates how much he has yet to learn. Of
this he was ignorant in his high school and his college days, and he was
confident of his ability. An expression of choice of a life-work by the
freshman class of a college or university will give a large showing for
journalism; in the senior year it will fall to a minor figure, not more
than from three to seven per cent of the whole. By that period the
students have learned some things concerning life, and have decided,
either because of temperament, or as did the business man for his son,
for some other profession.
To those who choose it deliberately as a life-work, obtaining a position
presents as many difficulties as it does in any other profession. The
old-time plan by which the beginner began as “devil,” sweeping out the
office, cleaning the presses, and finally rising to be compositor and
writer, is in these days of specialization out of date. The newspaper
business has as distinct departments as a department store. While a full
knowledge of every part of the workings of the office is unquestionably
valuable, the eager aspirant finds time too limited to serve a long
apprenticeship at the mechanical end in order to prepare himself for the
writing-room.
Hence we find the newspaper worker seeking a new preparation. He strives
for a broad knowledge, rather than mechanical training, and it is from
such preparation that he enters the newspaper office with the best
chances of success. Once the college man in the newspaper office was a
joke. His sophomoric style was the object of sneers and jeers from the
men who had been trained in the school of actual practice at the desk.
To-day few editors hold to the idea that there can be no special
preparation worth while outside the office, just as you find few farmers
sneering at the work of agricultural colleges. It is not uncommon to
find the staff of a great newspaper composed largely of college men, and
when a new man is sought for the writing force it is usually one with a
college degree who obtains the place. It is recognized that the ability
to think clearly, to write understandable English, and to know the big
facts of the world and its doings, are essential, and that college
training fits the young man of brains for this. Such faults as may have
been acquired can easily be corrected.
Along with the tendency toward specialization in other directions,
colleges and universities have established schools or departments of
journalism in which they seek to assist those students who desire to
follow that career. It is not a just criticism of such efforts to say,
as some editors have said, that it is impossible to give practical
experience outside a newspaper office. Such an opinion implies that news
and comment can be written only within sound of a printing-press; yet a
vast deal of actual everyday work on the papers themselves is done by
persons outside the office.
About twenty colleges and universities, chiefly in the Middle West and
Northwest, have established such schools. They range in their curriculum
from courses of lectures by newspaper men continued through a part of
the four-years’ course, to complete schools with a systematic course of
study comprehending general culture, history, and science, with actual
work on a daily paper published by the students themselves, on which,
under the guidance of an experienced newspaper man, they fill creditably
every department and assist in the final make-up of the publication.
They even gain a fair comprehension of the workings of linotypes,
presses, and the details of composition, without attempting to attain
such hand-skill as to make them eligible to positions in the mechanical
department.
These students, in addition to possessing the broad culture that comes
with a college degree, know how to write a “story,” how to frame a
headline, how to construct editorial comment, and they certainly enter
the newspaper office lacking the crudeness manifested by those who have
all the details of newspaper style to learn. This sort of schooling does
not make newspaper men of the unfit, but to the fit it gives a
preparation that saves them much time in attaining positions of value.
That a course of this kind will become an integral part of many more
colleges is probable.
In these schools some of the most capable students enroll. They are the
young men and young women of literary tastes and keen ambitions. They
are as able as the students who elect law, or science, or engineering.
From months of daily work in a class-room fitted up like the city room
of a great newspaper, with definite news-assignments and tasks that
cover the whole field of writing for the press, they can scarcely fail
to absorb some of the newspaper spirit, and graduate with a fairly
definite idea of what is to be required of them.
II
Then there comes the question, where shall the start be made? Is it best
to begin on the small paper and work toward metropolitan journalism? or
to seek a reporter’s place on the city daily and work for advancement?
Something is to be said for the latter course. The editor of one of the
leading New York dailies remarked the other day: “The man who begins in
New York, and stays with it, rises if he be capable. Changes in the
staffs are frequent, and in a half-dozen years he finds himself well up
the ladder. It takes him about that long to gain a good place in a
country town, and then if he goes to the city he must begin at the
bottom with much time wasted.” This is, however, not the essential
argument.
Who is the provincial newspaper man? Where is found the broadest
development, the largest conception of journalism? To the beginner the
vision is not clear. If he asks the busy reporter, the nervous special
writer on a metropolitan journal, he gets this reply: “If I could only
own a good country paper and be my own master!” Then, turning to the
country editor, he is told: “It is dull in the country town—if I could
get a place on a city journal where things are happening!” Each can give
reasons for his ambition, and each has from his experience and
observation formed an _ex parte_ opinion. Curiously, in view of the
glamour that surrounds the city worker, and the presumption that he has
attained the fullest possible equipment for the newspaper field, he is
less likely to succeed with satisfaction to himself on a country paper
than is the country editor who finds a place in the city.
The really provincial journalist, the worker whose scope and ideals are
most limited, is often he who has spent years as a part of a great
newspaper-making machine. Frequently, when transplanted to what he
considers a narrower field, which is actually one of wider demands, he
fails in complete efficiency. The province of the city paper is one of
news-selection. Out of the vast skein of the day’s happenings what shall
it select? More “copy” is thrown away than is used. The _New York Sun_
is written as definitely for a given constituency as is a technical
journal. Out of the day’s news it gives prominence to that which fits
into its scheme of treatment, and there is so much news that it can fill
its columns with interesting material, yet leave untouched a myriad of
events. The _New York Evening Post_ appeals to another constituency, and
is made accordingly. The _World_ and _Journal_ have a far different
plan, and “play up” stories that are mentioned briefly, or ignored, by
some of their contemporaries. So the writer on the metropolitan paper is
trained to sift news, to choose from his wealth of material that which
the paper’s traditions demand shall receive attention; and so abundant
is the supply that he can easily set a feast without exhausting the
market’s offering. Unconsciously he becomes an epicure, and knows no day
will dawn without bringing him his opportunity.
What happens when a city newspaper man goes to the country? Though he
may have all the graces of literary skill and know well the art of
featuring his material, he comes to a new journalistic world. Thus did
the manager of a flourishing evening daily in a city of fifty thousand
put it: “I went to a leading metropolitan daily to secure a city editor,
and took a man recommended as its most capable reporter, one with years
of experience in the city field. Brought to the new atmosphere, he was
speedily aware of the changed conditions. In the run of the day’s news
rarely was there a murder, with horrible details as sidelights; no
heiress eloped with a chauffeur; no fire destroyed tenements and lives;
no family was broken up by scandal. He was at a loss to find material
with which to make local pages attractive. He was compelled to give
attention to a wide range of minor occurrences, most of which he had
been taught to ignore. In the end he resigned. I found it more
satisfactory to put in his place a young man who had worked on a
small-town daily and was in sympathy with the things that come close to
the whole community, who realized that all classes of readers must be
interested in the paper, all kinds of happenings reported, and the paper
be made each evening a picture of the total sum of the day’s events,
rather than of a few selected happenings. The news-supply is limited,
and all must be used and arranged to interest readers—and we reach all
classes of readers, not a selected constituency.”
The small-town paper must do this, and because its writers are forced so
to look upon their field they obtain a broader comprehension of the
community life than do those who are restricted to special ideas and
special conceptions of the paper’s plans. The beginner who finds his
first occupation on a country paper, by which is meant a paper in one of
the smaller cities, is likely to obtain a better all-round knowledge of
everything that must be done in a newspaper office than the man who goes
directly to a position on a thoroughly organized metropolitan journal.
He does not secure, however, such helpful training in style or such
expert drill in newspaper methods. He is left to work out his own
salvation, sometimes becoming an adept, but frequently dragging along in
mediocrity. When he goes from the small paper to the larger one, he has
a chance to acquire efficiency rapidly. The editor of one of the
country’s greatest papers says that he prefers to take young men of such
training, and finds that they have a broader vision than when educated
in newspaper-making from the bottom in his own office.
It is easy to say, as did the merchant concerning his son, that there
are few chances for financial success in journalism. Yet it is probable
that for the man of distinction in journalism the rewards are not less
than they are in other professions. The salaries on the metropolitan
papers are liberal, and are becoming greater each year as the business
of news-purveying becomes better systematized and more profitable. The
newspaper man earns vastly more than the minister. The editor in the
city gets as much out of life as do the attorneys. The country editor,
with his plant worth five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars,
frequently earns for his labors as satisfactory an income as the banker;
while the number of editors of country weeklies who have a profit of
three thousand dollars or more from their papers is astonishing.
It is, of course, not always so, any more than it is true that the
lawyer, preacher, or physician always possesses a liberal income. When
the city editor makes sport of the ill-printed country paper, he forgets
under what conditions the country editor at times works. A prosperous
publisher with sympathy in his heart put it this way:—
“The other day we picked up a dinky weekly paper that comes to our desk
every week. As usual we found something in it that made us somewhat
tired, and we threw it down in disgust. For some reason we picked it up
again and looked at it more closely. Our feelings, somehow or other,
began to change. We noted the advertisements. They were few in number,
and we knew that the wolf was standing outside the door of that little
print-shop and howling. The ads were poorly gotten up, but we knew why.
The poor fellow didn’t have enough material in his shop to get up a good
ad. It was poorly printed—almost unreadable in spots. We knew again what
was the matter. He needed new rollers and some decent ink, but probably
he didn’t have the money to buy them. One of the few locals spoke about
‘the editor and family.’ So he had other mouths to feed. He was burning
midnight oil in order to save hiring a printer. He couldn’t afford it.
True, he isn’t getting out a very good paper, but at that, he is giving
a whole lot more than he is receiving. It is easy to poke fun at the
dinky papers when the waves of prosperity are breaking in over your own
doorstep. Likely, if we were in that fellow’s place we couldn’t do as
well as he does.”
The profession of the publicist naturally leads to politics, and the
editor is directly in the path to political preferment. The growth of
the primary system adds greatly to the chance in this direction. One of
the essentials of success at a primary is that the candidate have a wide
acquaintance with the public, that his name shall have been before the
voters sufficiently often for them to become familiar with it. The
editor who has made his paper known acquires this acquaintance. He goes
into the campaign with a positive asset. One western state, for
instance, has newspaper men for one third of its state officers and
forty per cent of its delegation in Congress. This is not exceptional.
It is merely the result of the special conditions, both of fitness and
prominence, in the editor’s relation to the public.
This very facility for entering politics is perhaps an objection rather
than a benefit. The editor who is a seeker after office finds himself
hampered by his ambitions and he is robbed of much of the independence
that goes to make his columns of worth. The ideal position is when the
editor owns, clear of debt, a profit-making plant and is not a candidate
for any office. Just so far as he departs from this condition does he
find himself restricted in the free play of his activities. If debt
hovers, there is temptation to seek business at the expense of editorial
utterance; if he desires votes, he must temporize often in order to win
friendships or to avoid enmities. Freedom from entangling alliances,
absolutely an open way, should be the ambition of the successful
newspaper worker. Fortunate is the subordinate who has an employer so
situated, for in such an office can be done the best thinking and the
clearest writing. Though he may succeed in other paths, financially,
socially, and politically, he will lack in his career some of the finer
enjoyments that can come only with unobstructed vision.
III
It is not agreed that everyday newspaper work gives especial fitness for
progress in literature. The habit of rapid writing, of getting a story
to press to catch the first edition, has the effect for many of creating
a style unfitted for more serious effort. Yet when temperament and taste
are present, there is no position in which the aspirant for a place in
the literary field has greater opportunity. To be in touch with the
thought and the happenings of the world gives opportunity for
interpretation of life to the broader public of the magazine and the
published volume. Newspaper work does not make writers of books, but
experience therein obtained does open the way; and the successes, both
in fiction and economics, that have come in the past decade from the
pens of newspaper workers is ample evidence of the truth of this
statement.
It is one of the criticisms of the press that it corrupts beginners and
not only gives them a false view of life, but compels them to do things
abhorrent to those possessed of the finer feelings of good taste and
courtesy. The fact is that journalism is, to a larger degree than almost
all other businesses or professions, individualistic. It is to each
worker what he makes it. The minister has his way well defined; he must
keep in it or leave the profession. The teacher is restrained within
limits; the lawyer and physician, if they would retain standing, must
follow certain codes. The newspaper worker is a free lance compared with
any of these.
The instances in which a reporter is asked to do things in opposition to
the best standards of ethics and courtesy are rare—and becoming rarer.
The paper of to-day, though a business enterprise as well as a medium of
publicity and comment, has a higher ideal than that of two decades ago.
The rivalry is greater, the light of competition is stronger, the
relation to the public is closer. Little mystery surrounds the press.
Seldom does the visitor stand open-eyed in wonder before the “sanctum.”
The average man and woman know how “copy” is prepared, how type is set,
how the presses operate. The newspaper office is an “open shop” compared
with the early printing-offices, of which the readers of papers stood
somewhat in awe. Because of this, there is less temptation and less
opportunity for obscure methods. The profession offers to the young man
and young woman an opportunity for intelligent and untainted occupation.
Should there be a demand that seems unreasonable or in bad taste, plenty
of places are open on papers that have a higher standard of morals and
are conducted with a decent respect for the opinions and rights of the
public.
Nor is it necessary that the worker indulge in any pyrotechnics in
maintaining his self-respect. The editor of one of the leading papers of
western New York quietly resigned his position because he could not with
a clear conscience support the nominee favored by the owner of the
paper. He did nothing more than many men have done in other positions.
His action was not proof that his employer was dishonest, but that there
were two points of view and he could not accept the one favored by the
publisher. Such a course is always open, and so wide is the publishing
world that there is no need for any one to suffer. Nor can a paper or an
editor fence in the earth. With enough capital to buy a press and paper,
and to hire a staff, any one can have his say—and frequently the most
unpromising field proves a bonanza for the man with courage and
initiative.
In a long and varied experience as editor, I have rarely found an
advertiser who was concerned regarding the editorial policy of the
paper. The advertiser wants publicity; he is interested in
circulation—when he obtains that, he is satisfied. Instances there are
where the advertiser has a personal interest in some local enterprise
and naturally resents criticism of its management, but such situations
can be dealt with directly and without loss of self-respect to the
publisher. Not from the advertiser comes the most interference with the
press. If there were as little from men with political schemes, men with
pet projects to promote, men (and women) desiring to use the newspaper’s
columns to boost themselves into higher positions or to acquire some
coveted honor, an independent and self-respecting editorial policy could
be maintained without material hindrance. With the right sort of good
sense and adherence to conviction on the part of the publisher it can be
maintained under present conditions—and the problem becomes simpler
every year. More papers that cannot be cajoled, bought, or bulldozed are
published to-day than ever before in the world’s history. The “organ” is
becoming extinct as the promotion of newspaper publicity becomes more a
business and less a means of gratifying ambition.
Publishers have learned that fairness is the best policy, that it does
not pay to betray the trust of the public, and journalism becomes a more
attractive profession exactly in proportion as it offers a field where
self-respect is at a premium and bosses are unconsidered. The new
journalism demands men of high character and good habits. The old story
of the special writer who, when asked what he needed to turn out a good
story for the next day’s paper, replied, “a desk, some paper, and a
quart of whiskey,” does not apply. One of the specifications of every
request for writers is that the applicant shall not drink. Cleanliness
of life, a well-groomed appearance, a pleasing personality, are
essentials for the journalist of to-day. The pace is swift, and he must
keep his physical and mental health in perfect condition.
That there is a new journalism, with principles and methods in harmony
with new political and social conditions and new developments in
news-transmission and the printing art, is evident. The modern newspaper
is far more a business enterprise than was the one of three decades ago.
To some observers this means the subordination of the writer to the
power of the publisher. If this be so in some instances, the correction
lies with the public. The abuse of control should bring its own
punishment in loss of patronage, or of influence, or of both. The
newspaper, be it published in a country village or in the largest city,
seeks first the confidence of its readers. Without this it cannot secure
either business for its advertising pages or influence for its
ambitions. Publicity alone may once have sufficed, but rivalry is too
keen to-day. Competition brings a realizing sense of fairness. Hence it
is that there is a demand for well-equipped young men and clever young
women who can instill into the pages of the press frankness, virility,
and a touch of what newspaper men call “human interest.”
The field is broad; it has place for writers of varied accomplishments;
it promises a profession filled with interesting experiences and close
contact with the world’s pulse. It is not for the sloth or for the
sloven, not for the conscienceless or for the unprepared. Without real
qualifications for it, the ambitious young person would better seek some
other life-work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Books on Principles of Journalism
Adams, Samuel Hopkins. The Clarion. A novel. 1914.
Bleyer, W. G. Newspaper Writing and Editing. The Function of the
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Hapgood, Norman. Everyday Ethics. Ethics of Journalism, pp. 1–15.
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Holt, Hamilton. Commercialism and Journalism. 1909.
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Reid, Whitelaw. American and English Studies. Journalistic Duties and
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Rogers, Jason. Newspaper Building. 1918.
Rogers, J. E. The American Newspaper. 1909.
Scott-James, R. A. The Influence of the Press. 1913.
Thorpe, Merle, _editor_. The Coming Newspaper. 1915.
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Whibley, Charles. The American Yellow Press. Blackwood’s, v. 181, p.
531 (April 1907); also in Bookman, v. 25, p. 239. (May 1907.)
Brisbane, Arthur. Yellow Journalism. Bookman, v. 19, p. 400. (June
1904.)
Brisbane, Arthur. William Randolph Hearst. North American Review, v.
183, p. 511 (Sept. 21, 1906); editorial comment on this article,
by George Harvey, on p. 569.
Commander, Lydia K. The Significance of Yellow Journalism. Arena, v.
34, p. 150. (Aug. 1905.)
Brunner, F. J. Home Newspapers and Others. Harper’s Weekly, v. 58, p.
24. (Jan. 10, 1914.)
Pennypacker, S. W. Sensational Journalism and the Remedy. North
American Review, v. 190, p. 587. (Nov. 1909.)
Curb for the Sensational Press. Century, v. 83, p. 631. (Feb. 1912.)
8. Inaccuracy
Smith, Munroe. The Dogma of Journalistic Inerrancy. North American
Review, v. 187, p. 240. (Feb. 1908.)
Collins, James H. The Newspaper—An Independent Business. Saturday
Evening Post, v. 185, p. 25. (April 12, 1913.)
Kelley, Fred C. Accuracy Pays in Any Business: New York World’s Bureau
of Accuracy and Fair Play. American Magazine, v. 82, p. 50. (Nov.
1916.)
New Credulity. Nation, v. 80, p. 241. (March 30, 1905.)
Fakes and the Press. Science, v. 25, p. 391. (March 8, 1907.)
Newspaper Science. Science, v. 25, p. 630. (April 19, 1907.)
Gladden, Washington. Experiences with Newspapers. Outlook, v. 99, p.
387. (Oct. 14, 1911.)
Irwin, Will. The New Era. Collier’s Weekly, v. 47, p. 15. (July 8,
1911.)
Print the News. Outlook, v. 96, p. 563. (Nov. 12, 1910.)
Falsification of the News. Independent, v. 84, p. 420. (Dec. 13,
1915.)
9. Faking
Faking as a Fine Art. American Magazine, v. 75, p. 24. (Nov. 1912.)
Bok, Edward. Why People Disbelieve the Newspapers. World’s Work, v. 7,
p. 4567. (March 1904.)
Offenses Against Good Journalism. Outlook, v. 88, p. 479. (Feb. 29,
1908.)
Lying for the Sake of War. Nation, v. 98, p. 561. (May 14, 1914.)
Wheeler, H. D. At the Front with Willie Hearst. Harper’s Weekly, v.
61, p. 340. (Oct. 9, 1915.)
Russell, Isaac. Hearst-made War News. Harper’s Weekly, v. 59, p. 76.
(July 25, 1914.)
Hearst-made War News. Harper’s Weekly, v. 59, p. 186. (Aug. 22, 1914.)
Dream Book. Outlook, v. 111, p. 535. (Nov. 3, 1915.)
Hall, Howard. Hearst: War-maker. Harper’s Weekly, v. 61, p. 436. (Nov.
6, 1915.)
Pulitzer, Ralph. Profession of Journalism: Accuracy in the News.
Pamphlet published by the New York World. 1912.
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.)
Tainted News as Seen in the Making. Bookman, v. 24, p. 396. (Dec.
1906.)
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.)
11. Suppression of News
Irwin, Will. 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. Collier’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.)
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 Political
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, vv. 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. Outlook, 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. American 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.
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, vv. 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 Advertising.
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. Current
Opinion, v. 57, p. 328. (Nov. 1914.)
Trials and Duties of a Dramatic Critic. Current Literature, v. 39, p.
428. (Oct. 1905.)
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.)
16. 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-Reviews. Dial, v.
56, p. 173. (March 1, 1914.)
Book-Reviewing _à 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.)
18. Newspapers and the Law
Schofield, Henry. Freedom of the Press in the United States. Papers
and Proceedings of the American Sociological Society, 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.)
Gamer, 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 Essential 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.)
Thorpe, Merle, _editor_. The Coming Newspaper, pp. 1–26. 1915.
Munsey, Frank A. Journalism of the Future. Munsey Magazine, 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 president of the company that
publishes the _World_. He takes an 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 in
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 comments 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 correspondent 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 years. He has taken an active
part in the framing of New York state laws protecting workers. Two books
of his, _Moral Overstrain_, 1906, and _The Old Law and the New Order_,
1913, deal with the relation of the law to social, commercial, and
industrial 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 Companion_, 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 dramatic 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 Colored Supplement” is taken
from the _Atlantic_ 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_.
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