The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1865-05-26
The Press and the Public.

One OF many letters OF similar tenor
recently received, says, in perfect SIM
plicitly, 81 assure you that what you
say, in favor of Peace and of lenity to
Rebels does not represent the sentiments
of your subscribers in this quarter" We
haven. the least doubt of it. Represent
ing--that is rejecting, conforming to-
the changing opinion of the hour, may
not be difficult but it surely cannot be
achieved by those who do not try and
We never attempted the task, finding it
unadapted to Our mental habits and tastes
We might hoe cotton for peck and
couple of pounds of bacon per week, with
a few cuts of horsewhip thrown in at in
tervals we can certainly chop cord.wood
or dig potatoes for a living, for We have
tried but to represent public opinion in
the editorial columns of newspaper is
task quite outside of our capacity. The
physical possibility of doing it may or may
not inhere in our faculties; the moral
does not
We are sometimes inspired with intense
disgust for a vocation whereof the popu-
lar estimate appears to be SO sordid and
low. We have quite often received epis-
ties gravely informing us that what we
think and say on a certain topic is unpop-
ular, in the evident presumption that
we only need to know this to make us
wear ship at once, and come short round
the other tack. The notion that writer
should ever undertake to resist, correct and
improve public sentiment seems as ipcon-
ceivable to our mentors as that a man
should practice law with a view to the
promotion of justice rather than for the
sake of the money he might earn by it.
If the public is to be made any better,
it must have instructors who do not "rep-
resent" its average views, but are wiser,
better, profounder, than they are
A journalist who uniformly "represents'
the popular opinion may make his news
paper profitable to its publishers but
what can he possibly have done for his
readers? AS vehicle of news, his sheet
may be valuable; but his editorials, con-
sidered as lamps along the public highway
and guides to correct thinking, can be of
no use whatever.
The idea which seems to lie at the bot
tom of the degrading conception of our
calling which we find prevalent seems to
be not far from this An editor is an in-
tellectual gladiator, whom we hire or pay
to find or invent reasons for the course
which we have predetermined to take
He is like the lawyer who, being paid his
fec, does his best for his client, whether
that clients case be good or bad. He
cannot always win; but he must ascer-
tain what his clients want and "repre-
sent it as well as he can.
Now we know and could name journals
that always mean to ego with the tide"
and generally succeed in this we pre-
sumo that they also succeed in making
money but they have no more influence
on pnblic opinion than the weathercock
has on the direction or force of the wind.
They may be consulted as evidence of
what is popular, and may, in that view,
have certain value, but in no other are
they worth straw.
Sometimes we are addressed by per-
son who says, 81 have taken your paper
fifteen or twenty years, and have never
disagreed with it till now" We are very
sorry to hear it; for, in the course of so
many years, we must have been many
times wrong, and you ought to have de-
tected some of those errors. The end
and aim Of this journal are, not to make
its readers think in all cases as we do, but
to teach them to think for themselves.-
We state our own opinions freely and
frankly; we ask for them fair consider
alton and candid Judgment; but we
never dreamed that every one would make
them his own. In fact, if we supposed
every one united in the belief of certain
proposition, we should waste no words in
its defense. It is precisely because we
presume an opinion not generally enter
tanned that we show cause for cherishing
it.
On single point we insist on being bet
ter understood. Several have written us,
protesting against "sentimentality," "ten-
darnouo ~ nr;,,;no1, 4, fNko., nnt:.o