paper, which the outside world so generally condemns? We say this.
Every periodical that thrives supplies the public with a certain
description of intellectual commodity, which the public is willing to
pay for. The New York Ledger, for example, exists by furnishing
stories and poetry adapted to the taste of the greatest number of the
people. Our spirited friends of The Nation and Round Table supply
criticism and that portion of the news which is of special interest to
the intellectual class. The specialty of the daily newspaper is to
give that part of the news of the day which interests the whole
public. A complete newspaper contains more than this; but it ranks in
the world of journalism exactly in the degree to which it does _this_.
The grand object of the true journalist is to be fullest, promptest,
and most correct on the one uppermost topic of the hour. That secured,
he may neglect all else. The paper that does this oftenest is the
paper that will find most purchasers; and no general excellence, no
array of information on minor or special topics, will ever atone for a
deficiency on the subject of most immediate and universal interest.
During the war this fundamental truth of journalism was apparent to
every mind. In time of peace, it is less apparent, but not less a
truth. In the absence of an absorbing topic, general news rises in
importance, until, in the dearth of the dogdays, the great cucumber
gets into type; but the great point of competition is still the
same,--to be fullest, quickest, and most correct upon the subject
_most_ interesting at the moment.
But every periodical, besides its specialty on which it lives, gives
its readers something more. It need not, but it does. The universal
Ledger favors its readers with many very excellent essays, written for
it by distinguished clergymen, editors, and authors, and gives its
readers a great deal of sound advice in other departments of the
paper. It need not do this; these features do not materially affect
the sale of the paper, as its proprietor well knows. The essays of
such men as Mr. Everett and Mr. Bancroft do not increase the sale of
the paper one hundred copies a week. Those essays are read and
admired, and contribute their quota toward the education of the
people, and reflect honor upon the liberal and enterprising man who
publishes them; but scarcely any one buys the paper for their sake.
People almost universally buy a periodical for the special thing which
it has undertaken to furnish; and it is by supplying this special
thing that an editor attains his glorious privilege and opportunity of
addressing a portion of the people on other topics. This opportunity
he may neglect; he may abuse it to the basest purposes, or improve it
to the noblest, but whichever of these things he does, it does not
materially affect the prosperity of his paper,--always supposing that
his specialty is kept up with the requisite vigor. We have gone over
the whole history of journalism, and we find this to be its Law of
Nature, to which there are only apparent exceptions.
All points to this simple conclusion, which we firmly believe to be
the golden rule of journalism:--that daily newspaper which has the
best corps of reporters, and handles them best, _necessarily_ takes
the lead of all competitors.
There are journalists who say (we have often heard them in
conversation) that this is a low view to take of their vocation. It is
of no importance whether a view is high or low, provided it is
correct. But we cannot agree with them that this is a low view. We
think it the highest possible. Regarded as instructors of the people,
they wield for our warning and rebuke, for our encouragement and
reward, an instrument which is like the dread thunderbolt of Jove, at
once the most terrible and the most beneficent,--_publicity_. Some
years ago, a number of ill-favored and prurient women and a number of
licentious men formed themselves into a kind of society for the
purpose of devising and promulgating a theory to justify the
gratification of unbridled lust. They were called Free-Lovers. To have
assailed their nightly gatherings in thundering editorial articles
would have only advertised them; but a detailed _report_ of their
proceedings in the Tribune scattered these assemblies in a few days,
to meet no more except in secret haunts. Recently, we have seen the
Fenian wind-bag first inflated, then burst, by mere publicity. The
Strong Divorce Case, last year, was a nauseous dose, which we would
have gladly kept out of the papers; but since it had to appear, it was
a public benefit to have it given, Herald-fashion, with all its
revolting particulars. What a punishment to the guilty! what a lesson
to the innocent! what a warning to the undetected! How much beneficial
reflection and conversation it excited! How necessary, in an age of
sensation morals and free-love theories, to have self-indulgence
occasionally exhibited in all its hideous nastiness, and without any
of its fleeting, deceptive, imaginary charms! The instantaneous
detection of the Otero murderers last autumn, and of the robbers of
Adams's express-car last winter, as related in the daily papers, and
the picture presented by them of young Ketchum seated at work in the
shoe-shop of Sing-Sing Prison, were equivalent to the addition of a
thousand men to the police force. Herein lies the power of such a
slight person as the editor of the Herald. It is not merely that he
impudently pulls your nose, but he pulls it in the view of a million
people.
Nor less potent is publicity as a means of reward. How many brave
hearts during the late war felt themselves far more than repaid for
all their hardships in the field and their agony in the hospital by
reading their names in despatches, or merely in the list of wounded,
and thinking of the breakfast-tables far away at which that name had
been spied out and read with mingled exultation and pity. "Those who
love me know that I did my duty,--it is enough."
Our whole observation of the daily press convinces us that its power
to do good arises chiefly from its giving the news of the day; and its
power to do harm chiefly from its opportunity to comment upon the
news. Viewed only as a vehicle of intelligence, the Herald has taught
the journalists of the United States the greater part of all that they
yet know of their profession; regarded as an organ of opinion, it has
done all that it was ever possible for a newspaper to do in perverting
public opinion, debauching public taste, offending public morals, and
dishonoring the national character.
The question arises, Why has not this paper been long ago outdone in
giving the news? It has always been possible to suppress it by
surpassing it. Its errors have given its rivals an immense advantage
over it; for it has always prospered, not in consequence of its
badness, but of its goodness. We are acquainted with two foolish young
patriots who were wrought up to such a frenzy of disgust by its
traitorous course during the first half of our late war, that they
seriously considered whether there was any way in which they could so
well serve their country in its time of need, as by slaying that
pernicious and insolent editor; but both of those amiable lunatics
were compelled occasionally to buy the paper. Of late, too, we have
seen vast audiences break forth into wild hootings at the mention of
its name; but not the less did the hooters buy it the next morning.
Nevertheless, as soon as there exists a paper which to the Herald's
good points adds the other features of a complete newspaper, and
avoids its faults, from that hour the Herald wanes and falls speedily
to the second rank.
Two men have had it in their power to produce such a
newspaper,--Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond. In 1841, when the
Herald was six years old, the Tribune appeared, edited by Mr. Greeley,
with Mr. Raymond as his chief assistant. Mr. Greeley was then, and is
now, the best writer of editorials in the United States; that is, he
can produce a greater quantity of telling editorial per annum than any
other individual. There never lived a man capable of working more
hours in a year than he. Strictly temperate in his habits, and
absolutely devoted to his work, he threw himself into this enterprise
with an ardor never surpassed since Adam first tasted the sweets of
honorable toil. Mr. Raymond, then recently from college, very young,
wholly inexperienced, was endowed with an admirable aptitude for the
work of journalism, and a power of getting through its routine
labors,--a sustained, calm, swift industry,--unsurpassed at that time
in the American press. The business of the paper was also well managed
by Mr. McElrath. In the hands of these able men, the new paper made
such rapid advances, that, in the course of a few months, it was
fairly established, and in a year or two it had reached a circulation
equal to that of the Herald. One after another, excellent writers were
added to its corps;--the vigorous, prompt, untiring Dana; George
Ripley, possessing that blending of scholarship and tact, that wisdom
of the cloister and knowledge of the world, which alone could fit a
man of great learning and talent for the work of a daily newspaper;
Margaret Fuller, whose memory is still green in so many hearts; Bayard
Taylor, the versatile, and others, less universally known.
Why, then, did not this powerful combination supplant the Herald? If
mere ability in the writing of a newspaper; if to have given an
impulse to thought and enterprise; if to have won the admiration and
gratitude of a host of the best men and women in America; if to have
inspired many thousands of young men with better feelings and higher
purposes than they would else have attained; if to have shaken the
dominion of superstition, and made it easier for men to think freely,
and freely utter their thought; if to have produced a newspaper more
interesting than any other in the world to certain classes in the
community;--if all these things had sufficed to give a daily paper the
first position in the journalism of a country, then the Tribune would
long ago have attained that position; for all these things, and many
more, the Tribune did. But they do not suffice. Such things may be
incidental to a great success: they cannot cause it. Great
journalism--journalism pure and simple--alone can give a journal the
first place. If Mr. Raymond had been ten years older, and had founded
and conducted the paper, with Mr. Greeley as his chief writer of
editorials,--that is, if the _journalist_ had been the master of the
journal, instead of the writer, the politician, and the
philanthropist,--the Tribune might have won the splendid prize. Mr.
Greeley is not a great journalist. He has regarded journalism rather
as a disagreeable necessity of his vocation, and uniformly abandoned
the care of it to others. An able man generally gets what he ardently
seeks. Mr. Greeley produced just such a paper as he himself would have
liked to take, but not such a paper as the public of the island of
Manhattan prefers. He regards this as his glory. We cannot agree with
him, because his course of management left the field to the Herald,
the suppression of which was required by the interests of
civilization.
The Tribune has done great and glorious things for us. Not free, of
course, from the errors which mark all things human, it has been, and
is, a civilizing power in this land. We hope to have the pleasure of
reading it every day for the rest of our lives. One thing it has
failed to do,--to reduce the Herald to insignificance by surpassing it
in the particulars in which it is excellent. We have no right to
complain. We only regret that the paper representing the civilization
of the country should not yet have attained the position which would
have given it the greatest power.
Mr. Raymond, also, has had it in his power to render this great
service to the civilization and credit of the United States. The Daily
Times, started in 1852, retarded for a while by a financial error, has
made such progress toward the goal of its proprietors' ambition, that
it is now on the home stretch, only a length or two behind. The editor
of this paper is a journalist; he sees clearly the point of
competition; he knows the great secret of his trade. The prize within
his reach is splendid. The position of chief journalist gives power
enough to satisfy any reasonable ambition, wealth enough to glut the
grossest avarice, and opportunity of doing good sufficient for the
most public-spirited citizen. What is there in political life equal to
it? We have no right to remark upon any man's choice of a career; but
this we may say,--that the man who wins the first place in the
journalism of a free country must concentrate all his powers upon that
one work, and, as an editor, owe no allegiance to party. He must stand
above all parties, and serve all parties, by spreading before the
public that full and exact information upon which sound legislation is
based.
During the present (1865-6) session of Congress we have had daily
illustration of this truth. The great question has been, What is the
condition of the Southern States and the feeling of the Southern
people? All the New York morning papers have expended money and labor,
each according to its means and enterprise, in getting information
from the South. This was well. But every one of these papers has had
some party or personal bias, which has given it a powerful interest to
make out a case. The World and News excluded everything which tended
to show the South dissatisfied and disloyal. The Tribune, on the other
hand, diligently sought testimony of that nature. The Times, also,
being fully committed to a certain theory of reconstruction, naturally
gave prominence to every fact which supported that theory, and was
inclined to suppress information of the opposite tendency. The
consequence was, that an inhabitant of the city of New York who simply
desired to know the truth was compelled to keep an eye upon four or
five papers, lest something material should escape him. This is
pitiful. This is utterly beneath the journalism of 1866. The final
pre-eminent newspaper of America will soar far above such needless
limitations as these, and present the truth in _all_ its aspects,
regardless of its effects upon theories, parties, factions, and
Presidential campaigns.
Presidential campaigns,--that is the real secret. The editors of most
of these papers have selected their candidate for 1868; and, having
done that, can no more help conducting their journals with a view to
the success of that candidate, than the needle of a compass can help
pointing awry when there is a magnet hidden in the binnacle. Here,
again, we have no right to censure or complain. Yet we cannot help
marvelling at the hallucination which can induce able men to prefer
the brief and illusory honors of political station to the substantial
and lasting power within the grasp of the successful journalist. He,
if any one,--he more than any one else,--is the master in a free
country. Have we not seen almost every man who has held or run for the
Presidency during the last ten or fifteen years paying assiduous and
servile court, directly or indirectly, or both, to the editor of the
Herald? If it were proper to relate to the public what is known on
this subject to a few individuals, the public would be exceedingly
astonished. And yet this reality of power an editor is ready to
jeopard for the sake of gratifying his family by exposing them in
Paris! Jeopard, do we say? He has done more: he has thrown it away. He
has a magnet in his binnacle. He has, for the time, sacrificed what it
cost him thirty years of labor and audacity to gain. Strange weakness
of human nature!
The daily press of the United States has prodigiously improved in
every respect during the last twenty years. To the best of our
recollection, the description given of it, twenty-three years ago, by
Charles Dickens, in his American Notes, was not much exaggerated;
although that great author did exaggerate its effects upon the morals
of the country. His own amusing account of the rival editors in
Pickwick might have instructed him on this latter point. It does not
appear that the people of Eatanswill were seriously injured by the
fierce language employed in "that false and scurrilous print, the
Independent," and in "that vile and slanderous calumniator, the
Gazette." Mr. Dickens, however, was too little conversant with our
politics to take the atrocious language formerly so common in our
newspapers "in a Pickwickian sense"; and we freely confess that in the
alarming picture which he drew of our press there was only too much
truth.
"The foul growth of America," wrote Mr. Dickens, "strikes
its fibres deep in its licentious press.
"Schools may be erected, east, west, north, and south;
pupils be taught, and masters reared, by scores upon scores
of thousands; colleges may thrive, churches may be crammed,
temperance may be diffused, and advancing knowledge in all
other forms walk through the land with giant strides; but
while the newspaper press of America is in or near its
present abject state, high moral improvement in that country
is hopeless. Year by year it must and will go back; year by
year the tone of public feeling must sink lower down; year
by year the Congress and the Senate must become of less
account before all decent men; and, year by year, the memory
of the great fathers of the Revolution must be outraged more
and more in the bad life of their degenerate child.
"Among the herd of journals which are published in the
States, there are some, the reader scarcely need be told, of
character and credit. From personal intercourse with
accomplished gentlemen connected with publications of this
class I have derived both pleasure and profit. But the name
of these is Few, and of the others Legion; and the influence
of the good is powerless to counteract the mortal poison of
the bad.
"Among the gentry of America, among the well-informed and
moderate, in the learned professions, at the bar and on the
bench, there is, as there can be, but one opinion in
reference to the vicious character of these infamous
journals. It is sometimes contended--I will not say
strangely, for it is natural to seek excuses for such a
disgrace--that their influence is not so great as a visitor
would suppose. I must be pardoned for saying that there is
no warrant for this plea, and that every fact and
circumstance tends directly to the opposite conclusion.
"When any man, of any grade of desert in intellect or
character, can climb to any public distinction, no matter
what, in America, without first grovelling down upon the
earth, and bending the knee before this monster of
depravity; when any private excellence is safe from its
attacks, and when any social confidence is left unbroken by
it, or any tie of social decency and honor is held in the
least regard; when any man in that free country has freedom
of opinion, and presumes to think for himself, and speak for
himself, without humble reference to a censorship which, for
its rampant ignorance and base dishonesty, he utterly
loathes and despises in his heart; when those who most
acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the
nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set
their heels upon and crush it openly, in the sight of all
men,--then I will believe that its influence is lessening,
and men are returning to their manly senses. But while that
Press has its evil eye in every house, and its black hand in
every appointment in the state, from a President to a
postman,--while, with ribald slander for its only stock in
trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous class,
who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not
read at all,--so long must its odium be upon the country's
head, and so long must the evil it works be plainly visible
in the Republic.
"To those who are accustomed to the leading English
journals, or to the respectable journals of the Continent of
Europe, to those who are accustomed to anything else in
print and paper, it would be impossible, without an amount
of extract for which I have neither space nor inclination,
to convey an adequate idea of this frightful engine in
America. But if any man desire confirmation of my statement
on this head, let him repair to any place in this city of
London where scattered numbers of these publications are to
be found, and there let him form his own opinion."
From a note appended to this passage, we infer that the newspaper
which weighed upon the author's mind when he wrote it was the New York
Herald. The direct cause, however, of the general license of the press
at that time, was not the Herald's bad example, but Andrew Jackson's
debauching influence. The same man who found the government pure, and
left it corrupt, made the press the organ of his own malignant
passions by bestowing high office upon the editors who lied most
recklessly about his opponents. In 1843 the press had scarcely begun
to recover from this hateful influence, and was still the merest tool
of politicians. The Herald, in fact, by demonstrating that a newspaper
can flourish in the United States without any aid from politicians,
has brought us nearer the time when no newspaper of any importance
will be subject to party, which has been the principal cause of the
indecencies of the press.
The future is bright before the journalists of America. The close of
the war, by increasing their income and reducing their expenses, has
renewed the youth of several of our leading journals, and given them a
better opportunity than they have ever had before. The great error of
the publishers of profitable journals hitherto has been the wretched
compensation paid to writers and reporters. To this hour there is but
one individual connected with the daily press of New York, not a
proprietor, who receives a salary sufficient to keep a tolerable house
and bring up a family respectably and comfortably; and if any one
would find that individual, he must look for him, alas! in the office
of the Herald. To be plainer: decent average housekeeping in the city
of New York now costs a hundred dollars a week; and there is but one
salary of that amount paid in New York to a journalist who owns no
property in his journal. The consequence is, that there is scarcely an
individual connected with a daily paper who is not compelled or
tempted to eke out his ridiculous salary by other writing, to the
injury of his health and the constant deterioration of his work. Every
morning the public comes fresh and eager to the newspaper: fresh and
eager minds should alone minister to it. No work done on this earth
consumes vitality so fast as carefully executed composition, and
consequently one of the main conditions of a man's writing his best is
that he should write little and rest often. A good writer, moreover,
is one of Nature's peculiar and very rare products. There is a mystery
about the art of composition. Who shall explain to us why Charles
Dickens can write about a three-legged stool in such a manner that the
whole civilized world reads with pleasure; while another man of a
hundred times his knowledge and five times his quantity of mind cannot
write on any subject so as to interest anybody? The laws of supply and
demand do not apply to this rarity; for one man's writing cannot be
compared with another's, there being no medium between valuable and
worthless. How many over-worked, under-paid men have we known in New
York, really gifted with this inexplicable knack at writing, who, well
commanded and justly compensated, lifted high and dry out of the
slough of poor-devilism in which their powers were obscured and
impaired, could almost have made the fortune of a newspaper! Some of
these Reporters of Genius are mere children in all the arts by which
men prosper. A Journalist of Genius would know their value, understand
their case, take care of their interest, secure their devotion,
restrain their ardor, and turn their talent to rich account. We are
ashamed to say, that for example of this kind of policy we should have
to repair to the office named a moment since.