The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-07-02
The Finding % Lsvisssssss-A Triumph
sor American ysurnaias..

Livingstone is one which belongs 30
the entire press Of America rs well
as to the journal whose fortune IL was 10
originate and carry il out II marks the era in
which the press already powerful beyond the
control of even the most exalted among men,
who may hold states and empires in
their grasp, strikes out boldly into
| new fields and treads daringly on terra
| incognitd, whether of mind or matter. This is
distinctively the work Of the American
press, whose aspirations and ambi-
tons have. grown with the majesty
of the land, and whose enterprise
has been moulded on the national character.
In even recent times the work of progress lay
in government hands, or else was
wholly neglected. Sir John Franklin
started out amid Polar SHOWS to work out the
question of the Northwest passage only to
leave his bones among the eternal ice
Hand or foot was not stirred to learn
his fate until Lady Franklin, with
woman's devotion, fitted out the expeditions
to search for him or his remains When the
gentleman entrusted with the command of
the HERALD expedition had arrived at Unyan-
yembe, half way on his journey to Ujiji
he wrote :-"Until I hear more of
him, or see the long-absent old
man face to face, bid you farewell; but
wherever he is, be sure I shall not give up the
chase If alive, you shall hear what he has to
say; if dead, will find and bring his bones to
YOU" To those who neither understood the
man nor the esprit de corps which gives the repre-
sentative of an American journal his stamp of
vitality the words may have sounded like bonn
bast. For answer it is sufficient to point to the
columns of the HERALD Of to-day. 1t may have
seemed to those who reasoned from a foreign
standpoint that no man could so wrap himself
up in his work as to give utterance to
such words with an earnestness Of pur-
pose, backed by a life at hazard from
day to day. They simply mistake the spirit
of the American journal. If it were in any
other quarter Of the globe, by land or sea, the
same enthusiasm, the same dash, enterprise
and pluck would be exhibited, because
of the race which he runs for his
journal against equally keen-witted rivals,
and not alone for the work itself.
Enterprise, then, is the characteristic of the
American press. 1t is confined to no one
paper, to no one locality. Whatever the
HERALD may have done in advancing the ma
tional reputation in this respect, it is
proud to claim, as the victor in
the Olympic games Of old was proud of his
laurel crown above all gifts of gold or gems.
But there is not paper published between the
Narrows and the Golden Gate which has not
its owns laurels in the line of enter
prise to glory in, and there is not one leaf Of
the wreath that has not been snatched at and
wrestled for by hundred sinewy jour
nalistic minds. Thus no one journal on the
Continent looks up to O permanent head
of the profession. To-day one paper may be
..ahead on the news - tomorrow another will
snatch the chaplet from its brows. The en-
terprise of contemporary in the late Franco
Prussian war was celebrated all over the land
as we have no doubt the success of the HERALD
will be when the HERALD's special columns
are perused to-day.
In England the London Times is looked up
to all over as a Triton among the min
nows. 1t is the great paper. The Daily
Telegraph is the cheapest, spiciest paper
published there; the Standard is
O careful, able tory organ; the Post is quiet,
aristocratic sheet, but the Thunderer over
shadows them all. Instinct with the demo-
cratic spirit of our institutions, the
press of America looks up to no
/ lord among them. AS eacn man born
on the soil may be President of
the United States so each paper-no matter
what its origin or where its birthplace-feels
within itself the possibility of precedence in
point of worth, brains and news over
all others. We, therefore, reassert that
the triumph of the HERALD Livingstone
expedition is the triumph of American jour-
nalism in its broadcast sense.
To point this something more we may
saw that an American war correspondent