The newspaper is not only a map but a test of the age; its history is parallel with civilization, and each new feature introduced is significant of political and social changes; while its tone, style, and opinions, at any given time, indicate the spirit of the times more definitely than any other index. If we scan, with a philosophic eye, these fugitive emanations of the press, from their earliest date to the present hour, we find that they not only record events, but bear indirect, and therefore authentic, testimony to the transitions of society, the formation of opinions, and the actual standards of public taste. Hence they are eminently characteristic to the annalist. Compare the single diminutive sheet which, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, formed the London newspaper, almost wholly occupied with state papers and the statistics of a battle in some distant region, with a copy of the present leading Tory journal in the same latitude; the extent and variety of its contents, the finished rhetoric of its leading articles, the scholarly criticism, fully reported debates, thorough detail of news, foreign and domestic, local and universal, personal and social—evince how the resources of the world have multiplied, the refinements of life progressed, and the intellectual demands of society risen. News, like all other desirable things, was, at the origin of newspapers, a monopoly of Government; the Gazette a mere instrument of courts: now, the daily journal, in free countries, is the legitimate expression of the popular mind; its comparative liberty of utterance is the criterion of political enfranchisement; and where entire scope is afforded, it takes as many forms as there are sects, theories, and interests in a community. Thus, from being a mere record it has become an expositor; from heralding royal mandates it has grown into an advocate of individual sentiments; and daguerreotypes civil life, in its swiftly-moving panorama, with incredible celerity and faithfulness. The improvements in the modern journal are chiefly owing to those in human intercourse. The steam-engine and the electric telegraph, by rapidly concentrating the knowledge of events at central points, give both the motive and the means of vitality and completeness to the newspaper. A remarkable effect, however, of these facilities is that they have diminished what may be called the personal influence of the editor, and reduced the daily journal, in a great measure, to its normal state—that of a dispenser of news. The success of the newspapers, for instance, in the commercial metropolis of this country, and also in London, is at the present day more the result of enterprise than talent. The paper which collects the earliest and most complete intelligence of passing events is the most successful. When these materials of interest were not so abundant; when days and weeks elapsed between the publication of important news, the vehicles of this evanescent but much-desired commodity were kept alive by the individual talent and information of editors. Their views were earnestly uttered and responded to; and the paper was eagerly seized for the sake of its eloquence, its argument, or its satire. It is true, indeed, that a degree of this prestige still belongs to the daily journal; but the éclat of the writer is now all but lost in the teeming interest of events; the editor, who, in less exciting times, would have been the idolized lay-preacher or improvisatore of the town, must content himself with judiciously compiling new facts, vividly describing passing events, and making up from his foreign and domestic files an entertaining summary of news. His comments are necessarily brief; no opportunity is afforded carefully to digest the knowledge he acquires, or to compare the occurrence of to-day with its parallel in history. Accordingly he glances at the new book, utters his party dictum on the last legislative act, gives a vague interpretation to the aspects of the political horizon, and refers to the full, varied, and interesting details of ‘news,’ for both the attraction and the value of his journal. A curious effect of this modern facility in accumulating news is that of anticipating the effect of time, or superseding the interest of artificial excitements. So various, incessant, and impressive are the incidents daily brought to our knowledge, so visible now is the drama of the world’s life, that we have scarcely time or inclination for illusions. History seems enacting; changes, once the work of years, are effected in as many months, and we are so accustomed to the wonderful that sensibility to it is greatly diminished. Imagine the scientific discoveries, the political revolutions, the memorable facts of the last twenty years, all at once revealed to one of our ancestors, at the epoch when editors used to board vessels at the wharf to glean three months’ English news for their weekly readers; when political items, marine disasters, advertisements, and marriages, were all printed in the same column and type, and notice was formally given that the postman would start on horseback in a week, to convey letters a hundred miles! Compare, too, the terse, emphatic style of the modern press to the old-fashioned prolixity, and the practice of publishing both sides of a public question on the same sheet, with the existent division of newspapers into specific organs; the original extreme deference to authority with the present bold discussion of its claims; and the even tenor of the past with the eventful present. Each period has its advantages; and the enduring intellectual monuments of the earlier somewhat reproach the restlessness, diffuse, and fragmentary life of to-day. ‘The patriarch of a community,’ says Martineau, ‘can never be restored to the kind of importance which he possessed in the elder societies of the world; from their prerogatives he is deposed by the journal, whose speechless and impersonal lore coldly but effectually supplies the wants once served by the living voice of elders, kindling with the inspiration of the past.’
To discover the public feeling of an epoch as well as its social economy, historians, not less than novelists, wisely resort to a file of old newspapers. In James Franklin’s journal, commenced at Boston in 1722, and afterwards removed to Newport, for instance, we find controversies between the clergy and the editors of the province, discussions on the utility of inoculation, advertisements of runaway slaves, and notices of whippings and the pillory—all characteristic facts and landmarks of the progress of civilization. The advanced culture of the Eastern States is evident from the contemporaneous republication in one of their daily prints of the poetry of Shenstone, Collins, and Goldsmith, and in another of Robertson’s History; there, too, we find Whitfield’s preaching theologically analyzed, and the manner of the Spectator and Tatler at once imitated. Federalism was incarnated in the Columbian Centinel; and in another organ, of the same community, at an earlier period, the contributions of Otis and Quincy prepared the public mind gravely to assert the rights for which the colonies were about to struggle. The financial essays of Morris and others taught them, through a similar medium, the principles of currency, exchange, and credit; Dennie induced, in the same way, a taste for elegant literature; and the journals of Freneau and Bache embodied the spirit of French political fanaticism. History, indeed, records events in their continuity, and with reference to what precedes and follows; but the actual state of public sentiment in regard to such exciting affairs as Hamilton’s duel, Jefferson’s gunboats, Genet’s mission, Perry’s victory, the Freemason’s oath, the death of Washington, California gold, and Kossuth’s crusade, is most vividly reflected from the diverse reports, opinions, and chronicles of the newspaper press.
It is impossible to estimate the fusion of knowledge and argument brought about by the press in free countries, whereby public sentiment is formed and concentrated. Truth, even the most sacred, was propagated in the world ages ago by oral and written communication; perhaps it was then more cherished and better considered; but without modern facilities of intercourse like the press, it is difficult to imagine how a political organization like our own could be regulated and conserved; how universal reputations could be so speedily created, the discoveries of science made available to all, or charitable and economical enterprise be expanded to their present wide issues. The establishment of prolific and cheap journals in New York, in 1830, was an event of incalculable historical importance. The universal interest in public affairs justifies, in this country, the greatest editorial enterprise; while the growing value of our journals, as means of reference, make it desirable their form should be convenient;—the book-shape of Niles’ Register is one reason it is so much consulted. The variety of talent and opinion enlisted in American journalism, the fights and flatteries of its conductors, the alacrity and seasonableness which is its chief ideal, are traits which absolutely reflect the normal life of the people; the church and schoolhouse, which inaugurate an American settlement, are instantly followed by the newspaper; and as the antiquarian now searches the Boston News-Letter or Pennsylvanian Gazette for incidents of the Revolutionary war, or statistics of colonial trade, he will, a century hence, find in the journals of to-day the economical questions, the social gauge, the daguerreotyped enterprise, fillibusterism, and popular tastes of this era.
The stagnation of business and the lapse of metropolitan fashionable life, which so emphatically mark midsummer in America, make that wonderful chart of life, the daily newspaper, more sought and enjoyed than at any other time. From the merchant in his counting-room to the stranger in the hotel-parlour, from the passenger in suburban cars and steamboats to the teamster waiting for a job, there is observable a patience and attention in reading newspapers such as one seldom perceives at more busy periods of the year. And if we were to cite a single characteristic sign of the times, as of universal import, it would be American journalism. The avidity with which the papers are seized at watering places, the habit of making their contents the staple of talk, and the manner in which they are conducted in order to meet the popular demands, are facts indicative of modern civilization which no one can ignore who would rightly appreciate its tendency and traits. These are brought out and made conscious, to a remarkable degree, in the leisure intervals which midsummer alone affords to our active and busy people.
The truth is that newspaper reading is the exclusive mental pabulum of a vast number in this country; and to this circumstance is to be ascribed the amount of general information, and ready, though superficial ideas, on all kinds of subjects, which so astonish foreigners. If you converse with your neighbour in the railway cars, or listen to the remarks at the table d’hôte, hear what the farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and gentlemen, so gregariously locomotive now, have to say—you will find that the daily press furnishes nine-tenths of the subject-matter and the speculative inspiration. There never was a time or a country where this ‘fourth estate,’ as it has been well called, enacted so broad and vital a function. Every year our press has become more personal and local on the one hand, and more comprehensive on the other. Cowper’s idea of seeing life through the ‘loop-holes of retreat,’ can now be realized as never before. However sequestered may be the summer home of our citizens, they have but to con the daily journals and know all that goes on in the great world, with a detail as to events, persons, and places, which not only satisfies curiosity, but imagination. Nothing is too abstract for the discussion, or too trivial for the gossip, of the American journal. It concentrates the record of daily life at home and abroad; and has so encroached upon the province of the old essayists, the excitements of fiction and the materials of history, that more or less of the literature of each may be found in every well-conducted newspaper.
And yet so undesirable is the unseasonable or excessive dependence upon newspaper reading, considered with reference to high culture and refined individuality, that, of all indirect benefits of modern travel, perhaps none is more valuable, as a mental experience, than an Eastern tour which cuts off the usual excitements and routine of civilized life, and especially that intense and absolute relation with the present fostered by the newspaper. Under the palms, on the Nile, and amid the desert, to a thoughtful mind and sensitive organization, it is blissful and auspicious to feel isolated awhile, not only from the busy material life of the age, but from its chart and programme—the newspaper; and so be able to live consciously for a season in the past, and feel the solemn spell of solitude and antiquity. The modern deluge of journalism, it has been said, with more truth than we can at present quite appreciate, ‘bereaves life of spirituality, disturbs and overlays individuality, and often becomes a mania and a nuisance, to keep out of which is the only way to keep sacred. It is a sad barbarism,’ continues the same writer, ‘when men yield to every impulse from without, with no imperial dignity in the soul which closes its apartments against the virulence of the world and from unworthy intruders.’[32] A Swedish archæologist proves, by relics found in graves in Europe and America, that man in the savage state makes in form, and as far as possible in material, identical utensils and weapons; so, in civilized nations the same abuses and traits characterize the periodical press. Crabbe’s description of the newspaper in England, eighty years ago, finds a curious parallel in that of Sprague in America, fifty years later.
The individual needs an organ in this age wherein and whereby he may record or find reflected his opinions; the great evil is, that he who directs this representative medium may be a ‘landless resolute,’ a Bohemian adventurer, without convictions or interest. It is to Burke and the opposition, who protected printers from the House of Commons in 1770, that the ‘Fourth Estate dates its birth;’ and Burke was right in his declaration—‘posterity will bless this day.’ Under the ancient régime one in a hundred Parisians only could read. After the Revolution, all became interested in battles; to read the news became indispensable; hence it has been well said:—‘Napoleon a appris à lire aux Parisiennes. Le professeur leur a coûté cher.’ The biographer of Volney records that philosopher’s testimony against the newspaper as a means of popular culture:—‘L’auteur des Ruines, appelé à la chaire d’Histoire, accepté cette charge pénible, mais qui portrait avec elle lui offrir les moyens d’être utile: tout en enseignant l’histoire, il voulait chercher à diminuer l’influence journalière qu’elle exerce sur les actions et les opinions des hommes; il la regardait à juste titre comme l’une des sources les plus fécondes de leurs préjugés et de leurs erreurs.’ De Tocqueville indicates, in a different way, his sense of the casual adaptation of the newspaper, which he describes as ‘a speech made from a window to the chance passers-by in the street.’ Among other tests which the rebellion in the United States has thoroughly applied, is that of the press; and it is no exaggeration to say that thereby London and Paris journalism has been completely denuded of the prestige of integrity and humanity, save as exceptional traits.
The deliberate protest of an eminent public man like Cobden is sufficient proof of this fact in regard to the great British organ. He writes:—‘A tone of pre-eminent unscrupulousness in the discussion of political questions, a contempt for the rights and feelings of others, and an unprincipled disregard of the claims of consistency and sincerity on the part of its writers, have long been recognized as the distinguishing characteristics of The Times, and placed it in marked contrast with the rest of the periodical press, including the penny journals of the metropolis and the provinces. Its writers are, I believe, betrayed into this tone mainly by their reliance on the shield of impenetrable secrecy. No gentleman would dream of saying, under the responsibility of his signature, what your writer said of Mr. Bright yesterday. I will not stop to remark on the deterioration of character which follows when a man of education and rare ability thus lowers himself, ay, even in his own eyes, to a condition of moral cowardice. We all know the man whose fortune is derived from The Times. We know its manager; its only avowed and responsible editor—he of the semi-official correspondence with Sir Charles Napier in the Baltic, through whose hands, though he never pen a line himself, every slander in its leaders must pass—is as well known to us as the chief official at the Home Office. Now the question is forced on us whether we, who are behind the scenes, are not bound in the interests of the uninitiated public, and as the only certain mode of abating such outrages as this, to lift the veil and dispel the delusion by which The Times is enabled to pursue this game of secrecy to the public and servility to the Government—a game (I purposely use the word) which secures for its connections the corrupt advantages, while denying to the public its own boasted benefits of the anonymous system.’
The London Times has won, and popularly confirmed for itself during the American war for the Union, the name of ‘Weathercock,’ only fixed awhile by a trade wind, and veering, with shameless alacrity, at every mercenary and malicious breath; while never before in the history of the world has the line of demarcation between what is true and comprehensive, and what is interested and partisan, been made so emphatically apparent to the common mind as in the vaunts, vagaries, and vacillations of journalism. On the other hand, one of the most remarkable evidences of the benefit of popular education, as well as an unique contribution to the materials of history, may be found in the letters of the soldiers of the Union army, written from the seat of war to their kindred, and printed in the local journals; thousands of them have been collected and arranged, and they naïvely describe every battle as witnessed and fought by as many individuals. Never before were such materials of history available. In view of the great result—the elimination of vital truth by public discussion—the expression as well as the enlightenment and discipline of public sentiment through the press, we have ample reason to agree with Jefferson, who declared, ‘If I had to choose between a Government without newspapers, or newspapers without a Government, I should prefer the latter.’
A son of Leigh Hunt, in a voluminous work entitled The Fourth Estate, has written the annals of the English press;—of which Count Gurowski has well said that it ‘addresses itself to classes, but seldom, very seldom, to the people itself, as the only national element.’ The English press mentions the name of the people, to be sure, but speaks of it only in generalities, not in that broad and direct sense as is the case in America. Whole districts, communities, and townships in England, as well as on the Continent, exist without having any newspaper—any organ of publicity. Therein England is under the influence of centralization, as are the other European States. Almost every township and more populous village in the free States in the Union has its organs, whose circulation is independent, and does not interfere with that of those larger papers published in the capitals of States, or in the larger cities.