with the potency of evil. If a nation’s “men of light and leading” fail
in their function the case is hopeless indeed. Moreover the regulation
of the various sources of public instruction is a task the complexity
of which far excels that of any problem presented by the other forms
of corruption. No insuperable technical difficulty is involved, for
example, in prescribing the standard of pure milk, the proper safety
devices for theatres, the best method of fencing dangerous machinery in
mills, the adequate safeguarding of the interests of policy holders in
life insurance companies. But who will tell us with authority exactly
what is news and what isn’t; who will define explicitly the standard
of orthodoxy for university instruction in economics and political
science; who will provide ministers of the gospel with a social creed
drawn up with the precision and free from the dogmatic differences of
their theological creeds? It is not strange, therefore, that although
there has been much vague talk of “tainted money,” proposals for the
legal definition and regulation of its alleged pernicious consequences
have been wanting. We already have extended and complicated legal
systems of inspection and regulation of many of the material goods of
life, while but little has been done or even concretely outlined in the
direction of state supervision of ideal goods and services.
Great as are the technical difficulties in the way of the latter
policy, the real reason for its lack of advocates would seem to lie in
the partial efficiency of the various ancient and highly socialised
codes of professional ethics. Competition in the economic world has
not been similarly safeguarded from within. With the breakdown of
the guild system and the sudden changes introduced by the industrial
revolution business found itself upon an uncharted sea. _Laisser
faire, laisser aller_ seemed perfectly obvious in this spacious time
of untouched world markets, but latterly distances have dwindled,
density has increased, and collisions with social norms have become
increasingly frequent. Too often and too easily competition has been
pushed beyond the limits of social safety. In the economic struggle the
“twentieth mean man” has been able to wield compulsory power over his
nineteen decent competitors and to force them on pain of bankruptcy
to adopt his own lower standards. The professional “mean men,” on the
other hand, knew from the start that they were derogating from the
ethics of their fellow practitioners, and in many cases were brought
quickly to book for it. Here rather than in any differences of personal
integrity must be found the reason for the higher moral reputation
enjoyed by professional as compared with business men. It is impossible
to believe that of the brothers of the family the black sheep always
went into business and the good boys into medicine or the ministry.
Finally we may expect the general immunity of the professions from
state regulation to continue just so long as they develop progressively
their own police systems. In this connection it is significant that
that one of them which has been most frequently and severely accused
of abetting corruption in economic and political fields, namely the
law, is precisely the one which has shown the most concern recently
in the reformation of its code of ethics.[42] Obviously such sanitary
processes may be materially hastened by the pressure from without of a
forceful and honest popular feeling in opposition to abuses which have
grown up in professional practice.
* * * * *
The greatest immediate influence upon public opinion is exerted,
of course, by journalism. The question of its corruption or
corruptibility is, therefore, one of prime importance. Accusations
against the press on this score are common enough, but few of them
are so sweeping as the following attributed to the late John Swinton,
formerly of the New York _Sun_ and _Tribune_.[43] At a banquet of the
New York Press Association in 1895, in response to a toast on “The
Independent Press” he is reported to have said:
“There is no such thing in America as an independent press unless it
is in the country towns. You know it, and I know it. There is not
one of you who dare express an honest opinion. If you express it,
you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid
$150 per week for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am
connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing
similar things. If I should permit honest opinions to be printed in
one issue of my paper, like Othello, before twenty-four hours my
occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write
honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job.
The business of the New York journalist is to distort the truth, to
lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon,
and to sell his country and race for his daily bread; or for what is
about the same thing, his salary. You know this, and I know it; and
what foolery to be toasting an ‘independent press.’ We are tools, and
the vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks. They
pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our
possibilities, all are the property of other men. We are intellectual
prostitutes.”
It is hardly probable that any one not himself accustomed to drafting
headlines could have so far exaggerated a situation, even under
post-prandial influences, as did the author of the above paragraph.
Whatever may be the measure of the sinning of any newspaper, certainly
no single sheet has ever been the corrupt apologist for all anti-social
interests. A paper which at any one time should attempt to stand for
unsanitary tenement houses, for child labour, for quack medicines, for
“embalmed” beef, for “tainted money” colleges, for monopoly tactics
in beating down small competitors, for life insurance frauds, for the
spoils system, the stealing of elections, and franchise grabbing,—or
for any considerable number of these,—would certainly lose its
influence with extreme suddenness. Newspapers are of all kinds, of
course. They differ even more in character than do individuals. As
the focal points of every interest in a community the interests of a
newspaper are much more diverse than those of the individual, and, as
in the case of the individual, these interests are shot through and
through with the noble and the base. Few people who are unfamiliar
with the practical making of newspapers realise what a constant and
bitter struggle is being waged in many cases to keep them free from
selfish and dishonest influences. In other instances, of course, the
partial triumph of the counting-room is palpable. Advertising columns
still carry, although with much less frequency than formerly, the
insertions of get-rich-quick schemes, of bucket-shops, of salary-loan
sharks, of quack doctors, quack medicines, and clairvoyants. Of course
these are frankly presented as paid matter, and every reader of
intelligence understands that they are inspired by the directly selfish
motives of the advertiser. When one thinks of the poor, the ignorant,
and the sick, who are exploited through such agencies, however, the
despicable character of the abuse is manifest. In some papers, also,
the reader finds abundant evidence of the activities of press and
publicity bureaus working in the interest of certain forms of business.
Morally this abuse is much worse than the foregoing, for it throws off
the form of advertising and clothes itself as news or editorial opinion.
Large advertisers, particularly since the development of daily full
page announcements by department stores, also insist at times, and not
always ineffectually, upon exerting influence over news and editorial
columns. A pitch of absurdity seldom realised in this connection was
exemplified by the silence or approval with which the press of one of
our largest cities, a single paper honourably excepted, treated the
clearly mistaken philanthropy of a certain wealthy merchant who had
established many distributing stations for sterilised, rather than
Pasteurised milk. The paralysing effect of box office influence upon
sincere and vigorous dramatic criticism is another deplorable instance
of the same sort.
Finally there are papers which, however free they may keep themselves
from outside interests, nevertheless represent the immediate political
or economic ambitions of their owners. It is easy to exaggerate this
abuse not only with regard to its present extent absolutely considered,
but also with reference to its contemporary development as compared
with the press of the past. In its earlier periods journalism was
almost universally the tool of party. During the civil war,—the epoch
of great editorial personalities,—political ambitions constantly
invaded the _sanctum_ with the result that the gross unfairness and
bitter partisanship engendered by the times were doubly and trebly
emphasised in the columns of the press. The new journalism which began
its career about 1875 not only prints more news but prints it more
fairly than the old school. Of course most of our papers are still the
recognised organs of some party, but they are far from being servile
and characterless advocates of every party policy. Moreover there is a
considerable number of politically independent papers, some of which
are avowedly so, while others are really so although they may still
wear lightly some party emblem. Fearless, continued criticism of public
abuses is more and more coming to be recognised as good policy both for
a paper and for the commonweal.
Unfortunately there is another side to this record of improvement and
achievement. Perhaps the most important single difference between the
old personal journalism and the journalism of to-day is the large
capitalistic character of the latter. When the mechanical outfit of a
city paper could be supplied with a comparatively small sum of money,
the personality of the editor was all important, although, as we have
seen, even this favouring economic condition did not by any means
produce uncorrupted journalism. At the present time large capital is
necessary not only to provide the equipment, but also to meet the heavy
losses of the few inevitable lean years at the outset. In most cases
the money is contributed by one man or by a comparatively small number
of men whose other business interests are likely to be very harmonious
if not already consolidated. In consequence there is a common, and
withal very human, tendency on the part of the paper thus established
and owned to deal favourably under all circumstances with the financial
interest or group of interests back of it. This is the typical
journalistic danger of the present period, just as the political
bee in the editor’s bonnet was the typical evil of the old personal
journalism. Legislation requiring newspapers to print the names of
their principal owners, and to deposit full lists of stockholders in
some state office of record where they could be made available to all
comers, ought to limit considerably the possibility of capitalistic
manipulation of the press. By revealing facts regarding financial
control which at best can only be suspected at the present time,
publicity of this character would enable readers to make the necessary
allowances for any undue form of counting-room control which might
manifest itself in the editorial or news columns of a given paper. In
spite of this and other shortcomings, however, most observers agree
that the American press as a whole is more independent to-day than ever
before.
In considering abuses which affect our journalism one should not forget
certain conditions which set a limit to the corrupt manipulation of the
greatest single agency of public instruction. A modern newspaper is a
large capitalistic enterprise, of course, but its business is peculiar
in that it must sell its product to tens of thousands of people every
day at the price of a cent or two per copy. However plutocratic a
paper may be at one end it always represents the extreme of democracy
at the other. Our press is occasionally prostituted by large moneyed
interests, but it is in much more constant danger of that directly
opposite form of corruption, namely demagogy. Reform of the press
depends ultimately upon the reform of its readers. Even on the latter
side, however, we have to note an increasing and very gratifying
readiness on the part of our papers to tell the American people the
truth about themselves and about foreign peoples regardless of all our
old time prejudices and antipathies.[44]
Reverting to the plutocratic influences affecting the press, however,
we have seen that in the nature of things no single newspaper can
become the tool of all the anti-social interests. It can defend
effectively only the few which for one reason or another are approved
by the managers of its policy. Usually a newspaper which is thus
silent or mildly unctuous on certain abuses endeavours to rehabilitate
itself by the condemnation, sometimes in a sensational and even
hysterical fashion, of other abuses, thus conducting, so to speak, a
vigorous department of moral foreign affairs. As a result the position
taken by the press as a whole on most points is strongly favourable
to the public interest. On this ground one may find a philosophic
justification for the sentiment so compactly phrased by Mr. George
William Curtis to the effect that “no abuse of a free press can be so
great as the evil of its suppression.”[45]
Even in dealing with those subjects concerning which a given paper is
not honest with its readers great care must be exercised. So far as
possible it must conceal the evidences of selfish interest and present
its case on grounds of public policy. Now arguments based on such
grounds are always worthy at least of consideration. A very large part
of political discussion, not only journalistic but of other kinds,
is “inspired” in this fashion, and it not infrequently happens that
what may be in accord with the self interest of individuals and groups
is also in accord with public interest. If this is not the case a
competing paper ought to be able to expose pretty effectively the false
assertions of its wily contemporary. In dealing with national questions
which are discussed by newspapers in every part of the country this
function of mutual criticism is in general well performed. Cases
occur, however, especially in connection with municipal issues, where
practically every paper of wide local circulation is either silenced
or actively engaged in the support of a crooked deal. Under such
circumstances a fight in defence of public interest is almost hopeless.
The more nearly the press of a given district approaches this condition
of corrupt paralysis, however, the brighter are the opportunities for
an opposition paper. In journalism as everywhere in the world of social
phenomena the inviolable law prevails that a function cannot be abused
without corresponding harm to the agency which allows itself to be
perverted. If it should ever happen,—although at the present time the
prospect seems remote enough,—that a thoroughgoing control embracing
the daily papers of the whole country should be established in defence
of consolidated interests, it is certain that some new agency of
publicity would spring up in the interest of the people as a whole. In
the end the daily papers themselves would be the worst sufferers from
a general perversion of their activities. As a matter of fact a new
and powerful journalistic organ has already developed an influence not
incomparable with that of the daily press. The wonderful growth of the
low priced monthly and weekly magazines during the decade just past
has been explained on various grounds:—the cheapening of paper and of
illustrations, the second-class mailing privilege, the effectiveness
of such media for advertisement, and so on. No doubt these factors go
far toward explaining the great expansion of magazine circulation, but
in spite of much journalistic prejudice to the contrary circulation
and influence are not necessarily correlative. And the influence, as
distinct from the circulation, of the magazines has been due very
largely to the boldness and effectiveness with which they assailed many
public abuses with regard to which for one reason or another the daily
press was silent or even favourable. Of course the detached situation
of the magazines made it easy and even profitable for them to pursue
policies which might have cost the newspapers dear. In any event a new
way was found for the effective journalistic presentation of the public
interest.
In discussing the alleged corruption of the learned professions as a
whole reference was made to the powerful influence of professional
codes of ethics. One must recognise the journalistic instinct and
journalistic traditions as strong factors of similar character. Even
where editorial and reportorial staffs have given way, for purely bread
and butter reasons, to what they knew were the selfish suggestions of
controlling financial interests these same interests must sometimes
have wondered at the lukewarmness of their paper’s support, and also,
perhaps, at the enthusiasm which it manifested for some good cause
indifferent to them. Moreover professional standards are rising in this
field as well as elsewhere. No one has given clearer or more forcible
expression to the highest of these newer ideals of journalism than
Mr. George Harvey of the _North American Review_, whose words, by the
way, present the extreme of contrast to those quoted earlier from Mr.
Swinton. After pointing out that the great editorial leaders of the
past generation,—Greeley, Raymond, Dana, Bennett,—were shackled by
their own political ambitions, Mr. Harvey asks:
“What, then, shall we conclude? That an editor shall bar acceptance
of public position under any circumstances? Yes, absolutely, and any
thought or hope of such preferment, else his avowed purpose is not his
true one, his policy is one of deceit in pursuance of an unannounced
end; his guidance is untrustworthy, his calling that of a teacher
false to his disciples for personal advantage, his conduct a gross
betrayal not only of public confidence, but also of the faith of every
true journalist jealous of a profession which should be of the noblest
and the farthest removed from base uses in the interests of selfish
men.” ...
“He [the journalist] is, above all, a teacher who, through daily
appeals to the reason and moral sense of his constituency, should
become a real leader.... Above capital, above labour, above wealth,
above poverty, above class, and above people, subservient to none,
quick to perceive and relentless in resisting encroachments by any,
the master journalist should stand as the guardian of all, the
vigilant watchman on the tower ever ready to sound the alarm of
danger, from whatever source, to the liberties and the laws of this
great union of free individuals.”[46]
Discussion of the “tainted money” charge so far as it affects our
universities and colleges can not, of course, be presented with
complete objectivity by the present writer. Nothing can be promised
beyond an earnest effort to attain detachment and impartiality. On the
other hand, a decade spent in the active teaching of the principal
debatable subjects in three institutions of widely different character
may furnish a basis of experience of some value.[47]
First of all there must be no blinking of the importance of the
subject. “It is manifest,” wrote the acute Hobbes, “that the
Instruction of the people, dependeth wholly, on the right teaching
of Youth in the Universities.” Quaint as is the language in which he
defends this proposition the argument which it contains is applicable
with few changes to modern conditions.
“They whom necessity, or couvetousnesse keepeth attent on their
trades, and labour; and they, on the other side, whom superfluity, or
sloth carrieth after their sensuall pleasures, (which two sorts of men
take up the greatest part of Man-kind,) being diverted from the deep
meditation, which the learning of truth, not onely in the matter of
Natural Justice, but also of all other Sciences necessarily requireth,
receive the Notions of their duty, chiefly from Divines in the Pulpit,
and partly from such of their Neighbours, or familiar acquaintance, as
having the Faculty of discoursing readily, and plausibly, seem wiser
and better learned in cases of Law, and Conscience, than themselves.
And the Divines, and such others as make shew of Learning, derive
their knowledge from the Universities, and from the Schooles of
Law, or from the Books, which by men eminent in those Schooles, and
Universities have been published.”[48]
In spite of the development of other intermediate agencies of public
instruction since the seventeenth century, and particularly of the
press and our elementary school system, the influence of universities
and colleges was never greater than it is at present, and it is an
influence which is constantly increasing in strength. The number of
universities and colleges is larger, their work is more efficient,
their curricula are broader, the number of college bred men in the
community is greater, and their leadership therein more perceptible
than ever before. Professors are enlisting in industrial, scientific,
and social activities outside academic walls in a way undreamed of so
long as the old monastic ideals held sway. By extension lectures and
still more by books and articles they are reaching larger and larger
masses of the people. Newspapers formulate current public opinion,
but to the writer, at least, it seems plainly apparent that the best
thought of the universities and colleges to-day is the thought that in
all likelihood will profoundly influence both press and public opinion
in the near future. Academic observers of the sound money struggle
of 1896, for example, must have smiled frequently to themselves at
the arguments employed during the campaign. There was not one of them
which had not been the commonplace of economic seminars for years.
The newspapers and the abler political leaders on both sides simply
filled their quivers with arrows drawn from academic arsenals. Extreme
cleverness was shown by many journalists and campaign orators in
popularising this material, in adapting it to local conditions, and in
placing it broadcast before the people, but of original argumentation
on their part there was scarcely a scintilla. It is significant also
that the battle of the ballots was decided in favour of the contention
which commanded the majority of scientific supporters. Subsequent
political issues, great and small, have developed very similar
phenomena, although of course it would be absurd to assert that in all
cases the dominant opinion of the _literati_ prevailed at the ballot.
There are also certain academic ideals of the day with which practical
politics and business are demonstrably and crassly at variance. Not
until the fate of many future battles is decided can we estimate the
full strength of the university influence on such pending questions.
Victory would seem assured in a sufficient number of cases, however,
to make it clear that just as the wholesomeness of the public opinion
of to-day is conditioned by the independence of the press, so the
wholesomeness of the public opinion of to-morrow will be determined
largely by the independence of our colleges and universities.
As compared with the press, universities possess certain great
advantages which justify the public in demanding from them higher
standards of accuracy and impartiality. The professor enjoys some
measure of leisure; the editor is always under the lash of production
on the stroke of the event. It is also a very considerable advantage
that the editorial “we” and the anonymity of the newspaper are foreign
to college practice. There is, of course, a pretty well recognised body
of opinion on methods and ideals common to the faculties of our learned
institutions, but in the separate fields of departmental work any
opinion that may be expressed is primarily the opinion of the professor
expressing it. His connection with a given institution is, indeed,
a guaranty of greater or less weight as to his general scholarly
ability, and he will, of course, be mindful of this in all that he
says or writes. But beyond this his personal reputation is directly
involved. Those who make a newspaper suffer collectively and more or
less anonymously for any truckling to corrupt interests. The college
president or teacher guilty of an offence of the same sort must suffer
in his own person the contempt of his colleagues, his students, and the
public generally.