The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 12 (of 12) / Dresden Edition—Miscellany

by Robert Green Ingersoll

And now, if we are provincial, it is our own fault, and if we are hateful and odious and circumscribed and narrow and peevish and limited in the light we get from the known universe, it is our own fault.

Day by day the world is growing smaller and men larger. But a few years ago the State of New York was as large as the United States is to-day. It required as much time to reach Albany from New York as it now requires to reach San Francisco from the same city, and so far as the transmission of thought goes the world is but a hamlet.

I count as one of the great good things of the modern press—as one of the specific good things—that the same news, the same direction of thought is transmitted to many millions of people each day. So that the thoughts of multitudes of men are substantially tending at the same time along the same direction. It tends more and more to make us citizens in the highest sense of the term, and that is the reason that I have so much respect for the press.

Of course I know that the news and opinions are written by folks liable to the same percentage of error as characterizes all mankind. No one makes no mistakes but the man who knows everything—no one makes no mistakes but the hypocrite.

I must confess, however, that there are things about the press of to-day that I would have changed—that I do not like.

I hate to see brain the slave of the material god. I hate to see money own genius. So I think that every writer on every paper should be compelled to sign his name to everything he writes. There are many reasons why he has a right to the reputation he makes. His reputation is his property, his capital, his stock in trade, and it is not just or fair or right that it should be absorbed by the corporation which employs him. After giving great thoughts to the world, after millions of people have read his thoughts with delight, no one knows this lonely man or his solitary name. If he loses the good will of his employer, he loses his place and with it all that his labor and time and brain have earned for himself as his own inalienable property, and his corporation or employer reaps the benefit of it.

There is another reason establishing the absolute equity of this proposition, a reason pointing in other directions than to the writer and his rights. It is no more than right to the reader that the opinion or the narrative should be that of Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown or Mr. So and So, and not that of, say, the Picayune. That is too impersonal. It is no more than right that a single man should have his honor at stake for what is said, and not an impersonal something. I know that we are all liable to believe it if the Picayune says it, and yet, after all, it is the individual man who is saying it and it is in the interest of justice that the reader be apprised of the fact.

I believe I have just a little fault to find with the tendency of the modern press to go into personal affairs—into so-called private affairs. In saying this, I have no complaint to lodge on my own behalf, for I have no private affairs. I am not so much opposed to what is called sensationalism, for that must exist as long as crime is considered news, and believe me, when virtue becomes news it can only be when this will have become an exceedingly bad world. At the same time I think that the publication of crime may have more or less the tendency of increasing it.

I read not long ago that if some heavy piece of furniture were dropped in a room in which there was a string instrument, the strings in harmony with the vibrations of the air made by that noise would take up the sound. Now a man with a tendency to crime would pick up that criminal feeling inspiring the act which he sees blazoned forth in all its detail in the press. In that view of the matter it seems to me better not to give details of all offences.

Now, as to the matter of being too personal, I think that one of the results of that sort of journalism is to drive a great many capable and excellent men out of public life. I heard a little story quite recently of a man who was being urged for the Legislature, and yet hesitated because of his fear of newspaper criticism of this character. "I don't want to run," said he to his wife, who urged that this was an opportunity to do himself and his friends honor, and that it was a sort of duty in him. "I would if I were you," said his wife. "Well, but there is no saying," he responded, "what the newspapers might print about me." "Why, your life has always been honorable," said she; "they could not say anything to your disparagement." "But they might attack my father." "Well, there was nothing in his career of which any one might feel ashamed. He was as irreproachable as you." "Ay, but they might attack you and tell of some devilment you went into before we were married." "Then you better not run," said his wife promptly. I think this fear on the part of husband and wife is identical with that which keeps many a great man out of public service.