The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-04-23
The Administration ana the Press.

From the N. y. Timer.
Whichever may be said of it in other
respects, there is one particular in
which General Grants distribution OF
official patronage meets our unqualified
appreciation; we mean its OStentdtIOuS
neglect of the public press. No editor OF
an influential newspaper has been ap-
pointed to public office, with one ex-
ception, and in that case it was prompt.
" declined. Whatever may have been
the motive OF this exclusion, the fact is
eminently serviCeable TO the profession
which it somewhat contemptuOusly ig-
nores.
We have never joined in the absurd
and extravagant self.laudations OF the
power and purity OF the press. But
that the country must look mainly to
the press for the reform of evils, the
correction of abuses, and the preserva-
ton, in an endurable shape, of free in
stitutions, we think Is beyond dispute.
The politicians of the country
the inen who control its conduct
by filling its Offices OF power and
OF profit,-are selfish, venal and cor
ing more selfish and more corrupt
every year. The government of our
great cities has become by-word of
reproach and just contempt. Our State
Legislatures are equally bad; there are
not half a dozen in the whole Union
basest and most degrading influences
by which human action can be con-
trolled. And Congress is rapidly fall
ing into the same false and fatal course.
The politicians of the Countrywide
compact, active, organized army by
which the whole civil administration is
guided and governed,-have become
Utterly demoralized, thrown
away regard for principle and for honor,
and look upon government only as an
agency for pIundering the country for
their own benefit,-and its offices, not
as means of rendering it honorable
service, but of enriching themselves at
its expense.
There is only onN power capable OF
relieving the nation from this intoiera'
BILE tyranny, and that is the people,
the source OF all power under our
form of government. And there 1s but
one agency through which the people
can be enlightened as to the real ma
ture of the tyranny of politicians by
which thew are ruled, and that is, the
newspaper press. Ifthat press becomes
the mere tool of the politicians, 1t Is OF
course the ally and HccOmplIce OF the
tyranny from which the people suffer.
It is only as it ia independent or the
ruling political y,-disinterest-
ed in its relations with the Govern
ment. and devoted to the rights and
interests of the people, that it can rem
der service of the slightest value to the
country. And the Administrations can
not render the country greater SER
vice than by excluding the controlling
conductors of the newspaper press
from public office, and thus relieving
them from all temptations to betray,
or neglect, the interests which are
mainly committed to their care.
OF the claims of editors to office, OF
which 80 much is said, we have nothing
to say. 1t is doubtless true that they do
create most OF the "great men" of the
country,-they make most OF the law
givers and executives of the nation;-
and in most cases they have much more
reason to be ashamed, than to be proud,
of their work. The country owes them
no gratitude and no pay for that. The
best service they can do the country is
to watch the conduct, expose the faults,
and denounce the crimes Of the men
they have placed in power. They owe
that reparation, at least, to the people
for what they have already done. And
they will find that service at once the
most useful and the most honorable
which they can perform.