The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-09-03
Tho Foreign Press ne Home and Abroad
ON the Great War.

ON the Great War.
Elsewhere we present compilation Of brief
extracts from the German and French papers
Of New York, and also of some OF the leading
journals Of Paris. These fragments are waits
of opinion which, after ALL are important in
the world, for the press is, in our time, both
the inspiration and the utterance OF the public
mind. Opinions justly conceived 'lke the
rains are generated in high places, but they
invariably descend into low ones and flow
down to the people as the waters unto the sea. )"
In the United States, the sturdy millions who
are Influenced by the utterance of the press
that addresses them through some hundreds Of
mouthpieces in the German tongue, compose
very considerable, thrifty, intelligent, active
and rapidly progressing part of our people, who
have borne to the remotest mountains Of the
West the domestic virtues, the song, the music,
and the art that fill their native land with cosey
homes, crowd their cities with galleries of
painting, statuary and rare productions of the
chisel the furnace and the loom, for useful and
elegant adornment; superb buildings worthy
of Athenian genius; grand libraries where the
lore of ages holds its silent but imposing
court; schools thorough and complete in
every ornamental as in every practical branch
of human knowledge, and now thronged with
American youth, and churches which have few
rivals excepting in the most ancient Christian
cities of Italy alone. The minor organs that
address them take their cue from this metropo-
lis, and, therefore, what their journals say
among us here has a wide echo and quick
and powerful reverberation.
The French journals, also, occupy con-
spicuous place The masses they address are
far less numerous, but they, too, are active,
gifted, sensitive, and compose valuable
element in our immense community. More
over, they represent among us a people with
whom we have strong sympathies and to whom
What they think and say cannot, therefore, be
disregarded, and nowhere on earth are the
French people likely to find so cordial and
disinterested an appreciation of all their high
qualities and their brilliant record as close to
the heart Of America. But the mere fatterer,
for right or wrong, was never true friend,
and we may none the less deplore the mis-
fortunes of a gallant race that we do not sub
scribe in all things to the ambition of their
rulers. Our own highest duty as journalists
is to deal with facts and faithfully to represent
them as they are, without fear, favor or any
bias of fancy or passion.
The Partisan press, which we have likewise,
noted in other columns, is ''many like the bill
lows" in the war topics it takes up, and Zone
like the sea" in its patriotism. Gould we
transfer its full utterances to our pages they
would be wonderful exhibit, indeed, of ma
tional agony and rage contending with national
self-deception and i'll luck. But, while we
write, we are hoping for time near at hand
when, by the providence Of craftsmanship and
battle together, we may be enabled to copy
again from the desks aud rostra of Paris the
motto fraternity" instead of those mournful
words revenge" and "war"