The word "editor" as applied to the conductors of magazines and
newspapers is rapidly becoming a mere courtesy title; for the powers and
functions formerly exercised by editors, properly so called, are being
more and more usurped by the capitalist proprietor. There are not a few
magazines where the "editor" has hardly more say in the acceptance of a
manuscript than the contributor who sends it in. Few are the editors
left who uphold the magisterial dignity and awe with which the name of
editor was wont to be invested. These survive owing chiefly to the
prestige of long service, and even they are not always free from the
encroachments of the new method. The proprietor still feels the irksome
necessity of treating their editorial policies with respect, though
secretly chafing for the moment when they shall give place to more
manageable, modern tools.
The "new" editor, in fact, is little more than a clerk doing the bidding
of his proprietor, and the proprietor's idea of editing is slavishly to
truckle to the public taste--or rather to his crude conception of the
public taste. The only real editors of today are the capitalist and the
public. The nominal editor is merely an office-boy of larger growth, and
slightly larger salary.
Innocent souls still, of course, imagine him clothed with divine powers,
and letters of introduction to him are still sought after by the
superstitious beginner. Alas! the chances are that the better he thinks
of your MS. the less likely is it to be accepted by--the proprietor; for
Mr. Snooks, the proprietor, has decided tastes of his own, and a
peculiar distaste for anything remotely savouring of the "literary." His
broad editorial axiom is that a popular magazine should be everything
and anything but--"literature." For any signs of the literary taint he
keeps open a stern and ever-watchful eye, and the "editor" or "editorial
assistant"--to make a distinction without a difference--whom he should
suspect of literary leanings has but a short shrift. Mr. Snooks is
seldom much of a reader himself. His activities have been exclusively
financial, and he has drifted into the magazine business as he might
have drifted into pork or theatres--from purely financial reasons. His
literary needs are bounded on the north by a detective story, and on the
south by a scientific article. The old masters of literature are as much
foolishness to him as the old masters of painting. In short, he is just
a common, ignorant man with money invested in a magazine; and who shall
blame him if he goes on the principle that he who pays the piper calls
the tune. When he starts in he not infrequently begins by entrusting
his magazine to some young man with real editorial ability and ambition
to make a really good thing. This young man gathers about him a group of
kindred spirits, and the result is that after the publication of the
second number Mr. Snooks decides to edit the magazine himself, with the
aid of a secretary and a few typewriters. His bright young men hadn't
understood "what the public wants" at all. They were too high-toned, too
"literary." What the public wants is short stories and pictures of
actresses; and the short stories, like the actresses, must be no better
than they should be. Even short stories when they are masterpieces are
not "what the public wants." So the bright young men go into outer
darkness, sadly looking for new jobs, and with its third number
_Snooks's Monthly_ has fallen into line with the indistinguishable ruck
of monthly magazines, only indeed distinguishable one from the other by
the euphonious names of their proprietors.
Now, a proprietor's right to have his property managed according to his
own ideas needs no emphasizing. The sad thing is that such proprietors
should get hold of such property. It all comes, of course, of the
modern vulgarization of wealth. Time was when even mere wealth was
aristocratic, and its possession, more or less implied in its possessors
the possession, too, of refinement and culture. The rich men of the past
knew enough to encourage and support the finer arts of life, and were
interested in maintaining high standards of public taste and feeling.
Thus they were capable of sparing some of their wealth for investment in
objects which brought them a finer kind of reward than the financial.
Among other things, they understood and respected the dignity of
literature, and would not have expected an editor to run a literary
venture in the interests of the illiterate. The further degradation of
the public taste was not then the avowed object of popular magazines.
Indeed--strange as it sounds nowadays--it was rather the education than
the degradation of the public taste at which the editor aimed, and in
that aim he found the support of intelligent proprietors.
Today, however, all this is changed. Wealth has become democratic, and
it is only here and there, in its traditional possessors, that it
retains its traditional aristocracy of taste. As the commonest man can
be a multi-millionaire, so the commonest man can own a magazine, and
have it edited in the commonest fashion for the common good.
As a result, the editor's occupation, in the true sense, will soon be
gone. There is, need one say, no lack today of men with real editorial
individuality--but editorial individuality is the last thing the
capitalist proprietors want. It is just that they are determined to
stamp out. Therefore, your real editor must either swallow his pride and
submit to ignorant dictation, or make way for the little band of
automatic sorters of manuscript, which, as nine tailors make a man,
nowadays constitute a sort of composite editor under the direction of
the proprietor.
With the elimination of editorial individuality necessarily follows
elimination of individuality in the magazine. More and more, every day,
magazines are conforming to the same monotonous type; so that, except
for name and cover, it is impossible to tell one magazine from another.
Happily one or two--_rari nantes in gurgito vasto_--survive amid the
democratic welter; and all who have at heart not only the interests of
literature, but the true interests of the public taste, will pray that
they will have the courage to maintain their distinction, unseduced by
the moneyed voice of the mob--a distinction to which, after all, they
have owed, and will continue to owe, their success. The names of these
magazines will readily occur to the reader, and, as they occur, he
cannot but reflect that it was just editorial individuality and a high
standard of policy that made them what they are, and what, it is
ardently to be hoped, they will still continue to be. Plutus and Demos
are the worst possible editors for a magazine; and in the end, even, it
is the best magazine that always makes the most money.