Ladies and Gentlemen, there is another argument worthy of your attention, and it is a well-settled fact that the eye assists the mind in remembering anything. Can you say that the words of the preacher have the same effect on the memory as the printed page? Test it yourself, gentlemen; let any one read a book aloud and see who has the freshest recollection of the subject—he who reads it or he who simply hears it read. I think that not even the affirmative will contend that the hearer understands the matter as well as the reader, and, this point conceded, it must follow that as the press has the greatest audience it has more influence. More money is spent for papers than for preachers. Now, ladies and gentlemen and honorable judges, in the argument of this, as in the discussion of all other questions, we can arrive at no final decision. It is not like telling which of two small objects weighs the most, but as though you were to attempt to tell which of two sections of land had the most black soil in it. Each one must at least decide for himself, and yet there are some clear and strong facts from which we can form a judgment, and from those facts that I have given you I am constrained to say that the press has more influence than the pulpit. Look how universal is the force that the press exerts from the highest to the lowest far and wide. Where is the family in McLean County that does not see and read the weekly paper? There is no one here who cannot tell of scores of families that scarcely ever see the inside of church. What was it that passed the pension bill? Nothing but the united voice of the press speaking the will of the people educated by the press. Go into Congress or any of your legislatures and you will see papers read and quoted; and the papers actually dictate legislation. Look at the amount invested in newspapers and in churches in the United States. It is fixed by the last census at three hundred and fifty millions of dollars. And the amount paid to preachers will run it up to five hundred millions invested directly for the pulpit, and this, too, is aside from the amount invested in seminaries. The amount invested in newspapers does not reach half this sum, yet the number of people reached by the papers is immensely greater than that reached by the pulpit. Let us come down to familiar instances. The Pantagraph, for instance, has a circulation of 13,700 papers per week. Each paper is read by five persons and you have an audience of sixty-eight thousand persons reached every week by the Bloomington Pantagraph. The sum invested in the First Methodist Church is more than is invested in The Pantagraph, but it would be idle to say the influence exerted by the preacher in that church is equal to the influence exerted by The Pantagraph. Each issue of the daily contains as much and each issue of the weekly four times as much as he gives to his hearers each Sunday. And so it is all over the land. Clearly, then, for the money invested the press has the greatest influence. Suppose as much money were invested in papers as there is in churches. Would not the effects be wonderful? What is printed in the papers may be read time and again, what is uttered from the pulpit may be heard only once, and then lost forever. It is not reasonable to suppose that the pulpit has as much influence as the press. What is it that influences legislation, the pulpit or the press? Undoubtedly the press. Did you ever hear of a congressman or legislator quoting a preacher in support of a measure? Never. Yet the law is something that affects each individual. Did you ever hear of the pulpit controlling the market? Never. Yet this is what the press is doing daily. What was it that brought the rebellion upon us? Nothing but the continual howling of the Southern press. In war, in peace, in money matters, in everything and everywhere, the press has the greatest influence. Educate by the press, bring pure, good, sound papers into your family, and be assured you are throwing around them the greatest protection. Elevate the standard of the press, and may there always be a fearless, independent press in our land that will not hesitate to apply the goad to those in high places.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention.
[THAT LEXINGTON IMPUDENCE.]
An Arraignment of the Democratic Party on Account of its Platform During the Garfield Campaign.
Written on a Bed of Sickness by Thomas J. Ford, and Published in the Newspapers of Bloomington, Ill., November, 1880.