The Daily Press
THERE never was a time in the history of the world when greater problems pressed for solution than now. The relations between nations are critical, and the hatreds engendered by I he recent war are fraught with infinite dangers. Shall we attempt to make war impossible? Shall we cease to bankrupt ourselves by making preparation for hostilities, or shall we make no effort to protect civilization against another world-conflict? What can we do to equalize the conditions of men, restore cordial relations between employer and employee? How shall we deal with the racial ill-feeling that is responsible for lynching, Ku Klux Klans, and multiform lawlessness? What is the remedy for the corruption and inefficiency that are so common in legislative bodies and among public officiaIs ? How adjust the crushing burdens of taxation, how provide for adequate transportation of goods and passengers? These are a few of the questions that demand attention.
The newspaper press is the source from which the public derives its knowledge of the facts. The daily journal goes into every home, every office, and every workshop. It can educate the people by its comments on events as they occur, and by its discussion of public questions. It asserts for itself a great position as the “Fourth Estate.’ It claims for itself great rights and great privileges — practically unrestrained free speech and reduced postage, among others. Its powers and its privileges carry with them great responsibilities, for it can lead or mislead the public. It is bound to lay before its readers only the truth, and, in printing the news, to remember that what it lays before its readers should be only ‘that which is fit to print.’ It is a great, educational force for good or evil, and those who conduct the press, while they exercise its power, should recognize their responsibility.
When this view is presented to editors, they are apt to remind us that, a newspaper is a commercial enterprise; that it must secure adequate circulation, or die; that , to gain circulation, it must publish what its readers wish to see; and that it cannot take a higher stand than its readers permit. In adopting this rule, the editor, of course, abandons to a great extent his position as leader. His readers lead him, not he his readers. If a strong editorial on some question in which people are warmly interested brings many letters of condemnation or threats of discontinuing subscriptions, and he yields to these critics, it is they, not he, who edit his newspapers. The press must either lead or follow; and, if it follows by catering to a depraved public taste or a popular prejudice, it is largely responsible for the taste or prejudice, for both grow by what feeds them. To every editor is presented the question: ‘Shall I seek money through increased circulation and advertisements, or shall I try to create a sound public opinion and make my journal a power for good? ’
The public demand for certain kinds of news ought, not to be the guide. The majority of men may enjoy scandals, the evidence in divorce suits or murder trials, the details of investigations into unsavory crimes. So also would they enjoy knowing what the incomes of their neighbors are, whether their domestic relations are happy, whether the business of each is making or losing, what diseases or infirmities affect them. Prurient curiosity has no limits; but the press cannot justify the invasion of private life by the claim that its readers like it. The competition between newspapers tends steadily to lower the bars that protect the private citizen against impertinent curiosity; and it, is the duty of every editor who recognizes his responsibility as a leader to resist this tendency.
How, at this crisis in the world’s affairs, does the press meet, it? A few weeks ago, in California, a man named Arbuckle was charged with a crime. The details of the investigation that followed were loathsome. If any guest at the table of a decent family had related the story in the presence of the wife and children of his host, he would have been expelled from the house, and never again admitted. No gentleman would for a moment have made the case a subject of conversation with a lady; no lady would have permitted it. Yet the daily newspapers, with a few honorable exceptions, gave a prominent place to every detail of the case for some days, and laid them thus before men, women, and children for whose eyes they were unfit. The editors thus brought into every home a story which, as gentlemen, they would never have told there in person. Can this be justified? Cannot; a, newspaper observe the ordinary rules of decent society? What possible good could this publication do anybody?
This is merely an instance. A leading Boston newspaper not long ago had, in a single issue, parts of six columns devoted to as many different divorce cases — not even local news, but collected from other states. The Stillman scandal, the Stokes case, and many others are forced upon our attention day after day. In these cases the public has no legitimate interest. They are calamities to the parties concerned, and sore afflictions to the children and relatives and close friends of the parties. The publication of all the evidence only increases the burden which the children must bear through life. The first glance at our morning paper reveals a catalogue of crimes, of accidents, of scandals, which make us sick. What education do the people get from these chronicles? What is the leadership which prompts such a selection of news? We all know that offenses must come; but ‘woe unto him by whom the offense cometh ’ to our own tables every morning. The decent people of a community have some rights, and should not be compelled to wade through tales of commonplace crime and filthy scandal every morning and evening.
There is another important respect in which the press fails. The relations between nations now are strained in many ways, and it is the duty of everyone to use his influence for peace. War is unthinkable. If we have already forgotten the horrors through which we lived for more than four years, the devastated regions, the hideous barbarities, the frightful loss of life; if the green graves of those we loved, the shattered lives of blind, maimed, and disabled men, no longer touch us, the crushing burden of taxation, which even our little part in the war has placed upon our backs, will not let us forget it. Can we think without horror of new drafts upon our youth, new slaughter, new drives to sell bonds and raise moneys to relieve suffering of every kind, new profiteers, higher prices of food and raiment, more of all the horrors that we can remember if we wall?
Yet the newspapers talk glibly of the next war. Instead of keeping out of their columns all appeals to prejudice against England, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and other countries, they are constantly publishing, now editorials appealing to prejudice or fostering suspicion, now letters from persons who, profoundly ignorant of the facts, speak confidently of English hostility or greed, of Japanese craft and ambition, of French selfishness. They let men who have traveled briefly in other countries spread at length their hasty conclusions from isolated experiences about people whose language they did not speak and could not understand. They scatter recklessly sparks that at any moment may explode a magazine or kindle a conflagration. One set, at the behest of exploiting interests, would embroil us with Mexico. Another insists that war for the control of the Pacific is inevitable; as if that ocean, to use Mr. Lowell’s phrase, could be anybody’s ‘backyard.’ Other so-called patriots hope to involve us in war with England, because they would have Ireland independent, heedless of the consequences which such a war would entail upon civilization. Because a portion of four millions of people want to govern themselves, perhaps as they govern some of our great cities, they would bring on a life-and-death struggle between hundreds of millions of men, who for every reason in the world should be friends. Their attempts to excite hostility, in the form of letters and speeches, find ready access to the columns of the daily press. This is criminal recklessness, and the editors should remember Bismarck’s words: —
‘Every country is held at some time to account for the windows broken by its press. The bill is presented some day or other in the form of hostile sentiment in the other country.’
Why do not those who guide our newspapers tell us what is good in our fellow beings? There is no lack of material, and t here are beams in our own eyes. Why don’t they do all that they can to discourage national prejudice, to make men realize what war would mean? Why don’t they use their great power to lead the people in the paths of peace? They call themselves Christian, and they ignore the fundamental truth that we should love, not hate, our neighbors. Can they not rise to some appreciation of Garrison’s noble utterance: ‘My country is the world, my countrymen are all mankind’?
Instead of filling pages with incessant harping on some worn-out joke, like the powerful Katrinka, and hideous colored pictures; instead of page after page devoted to sports, adorned by portraits of boys and men who are members of some team, why not educate readers to something better than sport? The facts which underlie labor unrest could be studied carefully and published, greatly to the benefit of us all. The real incidence of taxation, and how the burden can best be distributed, would interest a suffering public. What portion of our expense is waste, and where we practise undue economy, is a fertile subject, where careful study would lead to constructive suggestion. The truth on matters of real public interest, wellweighed advice, — the news tha1 is fit to print, — are what we have a right to expect from our newspapers; and if our expectation, our reasonable demands, were met, the press would be a great power for good, and would lead the public up. To-day it is abandoning its high place, and, so far from educating the people, is too often corrupting and debasing them.
To this appeal, which they recognize as containing much truth at least, the editors reply, ‘ But if we adopt your policy, we cannot sell our newspapers.’
The answer is that to-day there are journals which do not print scandals, or make of their columns a Newgate Calendar; which do not waste paper, now so dear, upon senseless colored vulgarities and the portraits of nonentities, and yet command a large circulation. There is a demand for more such papers.
The Tribune under Horace Greeley, the Evening Post under Bryant, the Boston Advertiser in its palmy days, were edited with a purpose and won public support. Examples could be given from among the journals of today. A newspaper well edited, and appealing to the best and not the worst that is in us,— a Springfield Republican on a larger scale, and published in a metropolitan centre; a Manchester Guardian occupying in America the place which that newspaper fills in England, — would not lack adequate support. All our newspapers can come nearer to these high examples by at least excluding from their columns the matter that appeals to the lowest prejudices and passions of their readers. They may not become great leaders, but they can at, least not be demagogues and scandal-mongers. Is not the experiment. worth trying?
If it is not, we shall learn to regard a free press, not as a priceless boon, but as a necessary evil.