"My country, 'tis of thee!" / Or, the United States of America; past, present and future. A philosophic view of American history and of our present status, to be seen in the Columbian exhibition.

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

more information for a given amount of money than the cheapest circulating library in the world.

The editor is also invaluable as a social barometer. As Thackeray once said, “The newspaper is typical of the community in which it is encouraged and circulated; it tells its character as well as its condition.” This is awfully severe upon some communities, and upon the readers of certain papers, but it is none the less true.

Unselfish thinkers, who are concerned chiefly for the good of the community, are always the men who esteem the editor most highly. Wendell Phillips, who for more than thirty years was abused by about half the editors of the land, said, “Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.” Many years before, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of our government, said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should prefer the latter.”

The editor has improved more rapidly in the past twenty-five years than the representative of any other profession. Theologians, physicians and lawyers all belong to schools of one sort or other, but of late years there has come up a new school of journalism which is called independent, and it has become so popular with readers of newspapers that the number of professors and students in it are increasing at a most gratifying rate.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., explains one difference clearly when he says: “There is one grand distinction between journals—some are newspapers, some are organs. An organ is simply a daily pamphlet published in the interest of some party, or persons, or some agitation.” But the organs are not as numerous as they used to be.

Who would have imagined any time before the late civil war that in any great political campaign preceding a general election in this country there would be scores and almost hundreds of independent newspapers. The time was when a newspaper could not exist unless it were a party or personal organ. But the newspaper has gradually risen from being a mere partisan or personal mouthpiece to being the mouthpiece of its own proprietor. At the present day no properly qualified journalist need attach himself to either party for financial reasons. If he is competent to make a good newspaper he is quite free to express his own opinions regardless of whom he may help or hurt, and the position is so delightful that a great many editors rush into it apparently for the mere pleasure of expressing their own opinions. During the last general election the scarcity of strong party organs, even in the largest cities where they were supposed most to be needed, was a matter of general comment among practical politicians, and it is known that some newspapers changed hands solely for the purpose of being turned into party organs and that it was frequently so difficult to obtain control of existing journals that new ones had to be started for the sole purpose of supplying their respective parties with mouthpieces. This may be considered a compliment to the personal interest of the average journalist or to his personal ability. But, whichever it is, it is highly creditable to the profession, and it is a result which could not have been hoped for twenty-five years ago.

Now-a-days every journalist of actual ability, no matter which party he belongs to, wishes that he may become owner of an independent newspaper. It is impossible for him not to see that the independent newspaper is not only the most quoted and the most talked about, but the most profitable. The paper which is read by both parties is sure of more subscribers, purchasers and advertisers than that which draws all its inspiration from the platform formed by a single convention. The independent editor hears himself quoted in Congress by men of both parties; and these same men are quite likely to grumble and swear within a week to find themselves castigated by the same men whose words of wisdom they recently availed themselves of.

The possibilities of the press for good, now that independence in journalism is practicable and also a business temptation, cannot be overestimated. Public opinion can be created more rapidly by daily appeals and arguments which the newspaper reader can quietly look over by himself, pausing whenever he may like to think over what he has read, than anything that can appear in campaign speeches or magazine essays or books by the most noted writers and specialists. The editor, as a rule, has dropped the old stilted form of the essay, and puts his arguments in the ordinary colloquial form, with homely illustrations and forcible applications so far as words go. If it didn’t seem like complimenting him too highly and making him vain, it would not be unfair to say that his method is that in which the more valuable portion of the four gospels was written. He has learned that political power is no longer in the hands of the learned classes, but that all portions of the community feel and read and think; and that, as every man has a vote, the larger the audience he talks to, the simpler and clearer must be his arguments. Consequently the press is giving us a class of debaters such as the world never knew before, and such as no parliamentary body in the world possesses even now or can hope to possess for some time to come.

With increased freedom from party reins and ties, the editor is continually increasing and enlarging the interests to which he addresses himself. There is scarcely a newspaper in the United States at the present day which restricts itself entirely to political subjects. Anything in the nature of human interests, social economies, moral reforms, and even the tastes and amusements of the people is a fair subject for the editor. He is not only a teacher; he is a preacher, and he preaches six days in the week instead of one. In fact, he frequently extends his ministrations into the seventh day also, to the great annoyance of preachers who occupy more dignified positions, but with not so large a congregation.

The press hereafter must be the principal moral, political and social influence of the country. There is no way to put it backward. It is being more and more trusted—more and more read—more and more depended upon to be equal to every emergency; and, to do it justice, it seldom disappoints expectations—a statement that cannot be made with any shadow of truth of any class of statesmen, except the very best. Years ago Lamartine was laughed at as a dreamer when he said, “Newspapers will ultimately engross all literature; there will be nothing else published but newspapers,” but Lamartine’s prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled. The newspaper is invading every department of literature, and giving the reader the best at the lowest price.