And yet the force and habit of tradition cannot forcibly be shaken off. Though New England, in forgetting the heroes who fought under British colours, has attempted to break the continuity of history, it is in New England where the links in the ancient chain are most stoutly coupled. Though all the prayer-books in the world be destroyed, the marks of its origin will still be stamped indelibly upon the face of the country. The very dourness which persuades these stern men to look with regret upon their beginnings is but a part of the puritanical character which drove them to take refuge in a foreign land. Stiff-necked and fanatical as they were, when they left England, they did but intensify their hard fanaticism in the new land. For there they were all of one party, and their children grew up without the wholesome stimulant of opposition. And if perchance one or two strayed from the fold of strict allegiance, the majority were cruel in punishment. They became persecutors for what they believed was righteousness' sake, and their cruelty was the more severe because it was based, as they believed, upon a superior morality. And so they grew, as an American historian has said, to hate the toleration for which they once fought, to deplore the liberty of conscience for whose sake they had been ready to face exile. What in themselves they praised for liberty and toleration, they denounced in others as carelessness or heresy. So they cultivated a hard habit of thought; so they esteemed too seriously the efforts they made in the cause of freedom; so they still exaggerate the importance of the Revolution, which the passage of time should compel them to regard with a cold and dispassionate eye.
But if in a certain pitilessness of character the New Englanders are more English than the English, they still resemble the Puritans of the seventeenth century in their love of a well-ordered life. It was in their towns and villages that the old colonial life flourished to the wisest purpose. The houses which they built, and which still stand, are the perfection of elegance and comfort. The simplicity of their aspect is matched by the beauty which confronts you when once you have crossed the threshold. The columns which flank the porch, the pilasters which break the monotony of the wooden walls, are but a faint indication of the elegance within. Like the palaces of the Moors, they reserve the best of themselves for the interior, and reveal all their beauty only to their intimates. The light staircases, with turned rails and lyre-shaped ends; the panelled rooms; the dainty fireplaces, adorned with Dutch tiles; the English furniture, which has not left its first home; the spacious apartments, of which the outside gives no warning,—these impart a quiet dignity, a pleasant refinement, to the colonial houses which no distance of time or space can impair. There is a house at Kittery of which the planks were cut out there in the forest, were sent to England to be carved and shaped, and were then returned to their native woodland to be fashioned into a house. Thus it belongs to two worlds, and thus it is emblematic of the New Englanders who dwell about it, and who, owing their allegiance to a new country, yet retain the impress of a character which was their ancestors' almost three centuries ago.
THE YELLOW PRESS.
If all countries may boast the Press which they deserve, America's desert is small indeed. No civilised country in the world has been content with newspapers so grossly contemptible as those which are read from New York to the Pacific Coast. The journals known as Yellow would be a disgrace to dusky Timbuctoo, and it is difficult to understand the state of mind which can tolerate them. Divorced completely from the world of truth and intelligence, they present nothing which an educated man would desire to read. They are said to be excluded from clubs and from respectable houses. But even if this prohibition be a fact, their proprietors need feel no regret. We are informed by the Yellowest of Editors that his burning words are read every day by five million men and women.
What, then, is the aspect and character of these Yellow Journals? As they are happily strange on our side the ocean, they need some description. They are ill-printed, over-illustrated sheets, whose end and aim are to inflame a jaded or insensitive palate. They seem to address the blind eye and the sluggish mind of the halfwitted. The wholly unimportant information which they desire to impart is not conveyed in type of the ordinary shape and size. The "scare" headlines are set forth in letters three inches in height. It is as though the editors of these sheets are determined to exhaust your attention. They are not content to tell you that this or that inapposite event has taken place. They pant, they shriek, they yell. Their method represents the beating of a thousand big drums, the blare of unnumbered trumpets, the shouted blasphemies of a million raucous throats. And if, with all this noise dinning in your ear, you are persuaded to read a Yellow sheet, which is commonly pink in colour, you are grievously disappointed. The thing is not even sensational. Its "scare" headlines do but arouse a curiosity which the "brightest and brainiest" reporter in the United States is not able to satisfy.
Of what happens in the great world you will find not a trace in the Yellow Journals. They betray no interest in politics, in literature, or in the fine arts. There is nothing of grave importance which can be converted into a "good story." That a great man should perform a great task is immaterial. Noble deeds make no scandal, and are therefore not worth reporting. But if you can discover that the great man has a hidden vice, or an eccentric taste in boots or hats, there is "copy" ready to your hand. All things and all men must be reduced to a dead level of imbecility. The Yellow Press is not obscene—it has not the courage for that. Its proud boast is that it never prints a line that a father might not read to his daughter. It is merely personal and impertinent. No one's life is secure from its spies. No privacy is sacred. Mr Stead's famous ideal of an ear at every keyhole is magnificently realised in America. A hundred reporters are ready, at a moment's notice, to invade houses, to uncover secrets, to molest honest citizens with indiscreet questions. And if their victims are unwilling to respond, they pay for it with public insult and malicious invention. Those who will not bow to the common tyrant of the Press cannot complain if words are ascribed to them which they never uttered, if they are held guilty of deeds from which they would shrink in horror. Law and custom are alike powerless to fight this tyranny, which is the most ingenious and irksome form of blackmail yet invented.
The perfect newspaper, if such were possible, would present to its readers a succinct history of each day as it passes. It would weigh with a scrupulous hand the relative importance of events. It would give to each department of human activity no more than its just space. It would reduce scandal within the narrow limits which ought to confine it. Under its wise auspices murder, burglary, and suicide would be deposed from the eminence upon which an idle curiosity has placed them. Those strange beings known as public men would be famous not for what their wives wear at somebody else's "At Home," but for their own virtues and attainments. The foolish actors and actresses, who now believe themselves the masters of the world, would slink away into entrefilets on a back page. The perfect newspaper, in brief, would resemble a Palace of Truth, in which deceit was impossible and vanity ridiculous. It would crush the hankerers after false reputations, it would hurl the foolish from the mighty seats which they try to fill, and it would present an invaluable record to future generations.
What picture of its world does the Yellow Press present? A picture of colossal folly and unpardonable indiscretion. If there be a museum which preserves these screaming sheets, this is the sort of stuff which in two thousand years will puzzle the scholars: "Mrs Jones won't admit Wedding," "Millionaires Bet on a Snake Fight," "Chicago Church Girl Accuses Millionaire," "Athletics make John D. forget his Money." These are a few pearls hastily strung together, and they show what jewels of intelligence are most highly prized by the Greatest Democracy on earth. Now and again the editor takes his readers into his confidence and asks them to interfere in the affairs of persons whom they will never know. Here, for instance, is a characteristic problem set by an editor whose knowledge of his public exceeds his respect for the decencies of life: "What Mrs Washington ought to do. Her husband Wall Street Broker. Got tired of Her and Deserted. But Mrs Washington, who still loves him dearly, Is determined to win him back. And here is the Advice of the Readers of this Journal." Is it not monstrous—this interference with the privacy of common citizens? And yet this specimen has an air of dignity compared with the grosser exploits of the hired eavesdropper. Not long since there appeared in a Sunday paper a full list, with portraits and biographies, of all the ladies in New York who are habitual drunkards. From which it is clear that the law of libel has sunk into oblivion, and that the cowhide is no longer a useful weapon.
The disastrous effect upon the people of such a Press as I have described is obvious. It excites the nerves of the feeble, it presents a hideously false standard of life, it suggests that nobody is secure from the omnipotent eavesdropper, and it preaches day after day at the top of its husky voice the gospel of snobbishness. But it is not merely the public manners which it degrades; it does its best to hamper the proper administration of the law. In America trial by journalism has long supplemented, and goes far to supplant, trial by jury. If a murder be committed its detection is not left to the officers of the police. A thousand reporters, cunning as monkeys, active as sleuth-hounds, are on the track. Whether it is the criminal that they pursue or an innocent man is indifferent to them. Heedless of injustice, they go in search of "copy." They interrogate the friends of the victim, and they uncover the secrets of all the friends and relatives he may have possessed. They care not how they prejudice the public mind, or what wrong they do to innocent men. If they make a fair trial impossible, it matters not. They have given their tired readers a new sensation; they have stimulated gossip in a thousand tenement houses; justice may fall in ruins so long as they sell another edition. And nobody protests against their unbridled licence, not even when they have made it an affair of the utmost difficulty and many weeks to empanel an unprejudiced jury.