Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-08-13
ON NEWsPAPERS

Press Fund of London, on the 28th of June
last, the Right Hon. Mr.. Gladstone de
liEered an address from which we mal% the
following extracts;
We have lived into times when the
newspaper is a great social, political, and
moral power, one so great that it cannot be
overlooked by any of those who would COM
prehend the character Of their country, or
! the nature of those processes by which the
movement of a mighty nation is directed
While the newspaper has thus become a
power in the land, those who are connected
with the management of newspapers-those
who supply daily or weekly to the public
the food which they derive from them
have become body so important o
US all that we may well say that they are
entitled not less than others to the dignity
of profession. They are no longer indi-
viduals, as they were a century ago, who,
perhaps guided by some prophetic in
stinct, but separating themselves in fact
from the mass Of the community, and from
the known and recognized paths of fame,
then laid the foundation of the newspaper
system. They are now persons engaged in
supplying from day to day one of those
primary wants of society, without which, it
is hardly too much to say, society, as we
comprehend and understand it, could not
exist. For two or three genera
tions the press of this country has acted
powerfully upon the mind Of the country,
but the circle and the area over which it so
acts has of late received an immense extern
sion. The press, which was formerly the
privilege of the educated class, has become
the patrimony of the people. There is not
a man possessed of the first elements Of
knowledge in their simplest form to whom
the press, at the prices to which it has now
descended, is not easily accessible | feel
that in this place discharge special duty,
because l am of opinion that those whose
lot is cast in public life are, more than any
other, debtors to the press of the country.
We are debtors to it in the first place be-
cause it is we who have the opportunity of
learning and percieving the enormous pub
lie and political advantages which have
been derived from the action of the press.
1t IL not too much to say that the action of
a popular and well.conducted press alters
essentially the nature of the relations be-
tween the governors and the governed.
Obedience becomes no longer duty to be
performed passiVely and in blindness. The
law, the government, the proceeding of the
Legislature, make their daily appeals
through the daily newspaper to the mind
and understanding of every member Of the
community; they weave new ties of inter-
est and affection between the private indi-
vidual and the public authority under
which he lives. They give new cement
to society and to the venerated institutions
of the country.
We have yet another, closer and a
more personal debt to acknowledge, aud
that, perhaps, under more heads than one.
think you have been told on former oc~
casions from this place that the press
would be Invaluable we're it only for the
beneficial processes which it applies to the
utterances, l believe, of both houses of
Parliament during the brief intermediate
period that elapses between the time they
leave the lips of the speakers and the time
they meet the eyes of the readers. l do
not wish to enter upon this delicate sub
iect, but undoubtedly it is true, in general,
that the skillful hand of the reporter Pro-
duces considerable improvement III he
speeches that are delivered in Parliament
in point Of grammar, in point of accuracy
of expression, and in retrenching any I'M
due fullness of development.
But besides that debt, there is another
obligation which we owe, not to the report
ers, but to the writers for the newspapers
and frankly confess that without them
do not know how we should get on. Their
encouragement and encomiums are of very
great value to us; they cheer us in the hour
Of need and of difficulty; but assure you
that /, for one-and believe all who have
similar experience will join me in saying
so-set far higher value on their criticisms
than upon their censures for no man is
ever injured by criticism or by censure.
If the criticisms and censures are unjust
they will do him no harm, except it be
through his own want ofmanliness of char
acter. If on the other hand they are just,
they are TO him invaluable they become
the mirror in which he acquires the view
and knowledge of what otherwise he could
not discern. From them he learns the
means of amending his faults, of avoiding
the errors he has committed, of making his
abilities, whatever they may be, more
available for the benefit of his fellow coun-
trymen, of doing-I will not say more per-
fectly, but at any rate less imperfectly-
the arouOuS work Wulcn IIOY1uence mas
appointed him TO do.
A writer in any newspaper, and especi-
ally if it be a newspaper of great influence
and importance, has in many senses most
difficult function to discharge. He has to
discharge a function that is difficult and
even dangerous for himself, far more than
for the public. For himself because he
writes-I will not say without a sense of
responsibility, because it would be unjust
to say so-but without the ready means of
constantly quickening that sense of respon-
sibility which is derived from publicity,
and with which most Of us feelst would be
difficult to dispense in the discharge of our
duty. Nevertheless, for us the function he
discharges is invaluable, and society is in
debted to those who furnish for them the in
struction and Improvement provided by
the newspaper, but none are so much in
debted TO them as those who ars the objects
Of the free and unbiased review, nay, even
of the hostile criticism. This debt !, for
one, am anxious to acknowledge. | do not
wish to exaggerate-I hope and believe
] have not exaggerated in the terms have
used-the immense, the inoalculable impor-
lance of the functions of the newspaper