There are men in Boston, some rich, some poor, old and young, who are free from this reproach; men that have a well-proportioned love of money, and make the pursuit thereof an effort for all the noble qualities of a man. I know some such men, not very numerous anywhere, men who show that the common business of life is the place to mature great virtues in; that the pursuit of wealth, successful or not, need hinder the growth of no excellence, but may promote all manly life. Such men stand here as violets among the cabbages, making a fragrance and a loveliness all their own; attractive anywhere, but marvellous in such a neighborhood as that.
Look next on the morals of Boston, as indicated by the Newspapers, the daily and the weekly press. Take the whole newspaper literature of Boston, cheap and costly, good and bad, study it all as a whole, and by the inductive method construct the ethics of the press, and here you find no signs of a higher morality in general than you found in trade. It is the same centre about which all things gravitate here as there. But in the newspapers the want of great principles is more obvious, and more severely felt than in trade—the want of justice, of truth, of humanity, of sympathy with man. In trade you meet with signs of great power; the highway of commerce bears marks of giant feet. Our newspapers seem chiefly in the hands of little men, whose cunning is in a large ratio to their wisdom or their justice. You find here little ability, little sound learning, little wise political economy; of lofty morals almost nothing at all. Here, also, the dollar is both Pope and King; right and truth are vassals, not much esteemed, nor over-often called to pay service to their Lord, who has other soldiers with more pliant neck and knee.
A newspaper is an instrument of great importance; all men read it; many read nothing else; some it serves as reason and conscience too: in lack of better, why not? It speaks to thousands every day on matters of great moment—on matters of morals, of politics, of finance. It relates daily the occurrences of our land, and of all the world. All men are affected by it; hindered or helped. To many a man his morning paper represents more reality than his morning prayer. There are many in a community like this who do not know what to say—I do not mean what to think, thoughtful men know what to think—about any thing till somebody tells them; yet they must talk, for "the mouth goes always." To such a man a newspaper is invaluable; as the idolater in the Judges had "a Levite to his priest," so he has a newspaper to his reason or his conscience, and can talk to the day's end. An able and humane newspaper would get this class of persons into good habits of speech, and do them a service, inasmuch as good habits of speech are better than bad.
One portion of this literature is degrading; it seems purposely so, as if written by base men, for base readers, to serve base ends. I know not which is most depraved thereby, the taste or the conscience. Obscene advertisements are there, meant for the licentious eye; there are loathsome details of vice, of crime, of depravity, related with the design to attract, yet so disgusting that any but a corrupt man must revolt from them; there are accounts of the appearance of culprits in the lower courts, of their crime, of their punishment; these are related with an impudent flippancy, and a desire to make sport of human wretchedness and perhaps depravity, which amaze a man of only the average humanity. We read of Judge Jeffreys and the bloody assizes in England, one hundred and sixty years ago, but never think there are in the midst of us men who, like that monster, can make sport of human misery; but for a cent you can find proof that the race of such is not extinct. If a penny-a-liner were to go into a military hospital, and make merry at the sights he saw there, at the groans he heard, and the keen smart his eye witnessed, could he publish his fiendish joy at that spectacle—you would not say he was a man. If one mock at the crimes of men, perhaps at their sins, at the infamous punishments they suffer—what can you say of him?
It is a significant fact that the commercial newspapers, which of course in such a town are the controlling newspapers, in reporting the European news, relate first the state of the markets abroad, the price of cotton, of consols, and of corn; then the health of the English queen, and the movements of the nations. This is loyal and consistent; at Rome, the journal used to announce first some tidings of the Pope, then of the lesser dignitaries of the church, then of the discovery of new antiques, and other matters of great pith and moment; at St. Petersburg, it was first of the Emperor that the journal spoke; at Boston, it is legitimate that the health of the dollar should be reported first of all.
The political newspapers are a melancholy proof of the low morality of this town. You know what they will say of any party movement; that measures and men are judged on purely party grounds. The country is commonly put before mankind, and the party before the country. Which of them in political matters pursues a course that is fair and just; how many of them have ever advanced a great idea, or been constantly true to a great principle of natural justice; how many resolutely oppose a great wrong; how many can be trusted to expose the most notorious blunders of their party; how many of them aim to promote the higher interests of mankind? What servility is there in some of these journals, a cringing to the public opinion of the party; a desire that "our efforts may be appreciated!" In our politics every thing which relates to money is pretty carefully looked after, though not always well looked after; but what relates to the moral part of politics is commonly passed over with much less heed. Men would compliment a senator who understood finance in all its mysteries, and sneer at one who had studied as faithfully the mysteries of war, or of slavery. The Mexican War tested the morality of Boston, as it appears both in the newspapers and in trade, and showed its true value.
There are some few exceptions to this statement; here and there is a journal which does set forth the great ideas of this age, and is animated by the spirit of humanity. But such exceptions only remind one of the general rule.
In the sectarian journals the same general morality appears, but in a worse form. What would have been political hatred in the secular prints, becomes theological odium in the sectarian journals; not a mere hatred in the name of party, but hatred in the name of God and Christ. Here is less fairness, less openness, and less ability than there, but more malice; the form, too, is less manly. What is there a strut or a swagger, is here only a snivel. They are the last places in which you need look for the spirit of true morality. Which of the sectarian journals of Boston advocates any of the great reforms of the day? nay, which is not an obstacle in the path of all manly reform? But let us not dwell upon this, only look and pass by.
I am not about to censure the conductors of these journals, commercial, political, or theological. I am no judge of any man's conscience. No doubt they write as they can or must. This literature is as honest and as able as "the circumstances will admit of." I look on it as an index of our moral condition, for a newspaper literature always represents the general morals of its readers. Grocers and butchers purchase only such articles as their customers will buy; the editors of newspapers reveal the moral character of their subscribers as well as their correspondents. The transient literature of any age is always a good index of the moral taste of the age. These two witnesses attest the moral condition of the better part of the city; but there are men a good deal lower than the general morals of trade and the press. Other witnesses testify to their moral character.