The Portland daily press., 1874-10-28

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PRESs.-Tbe
press every where, and very naturally, re-
sents recent law which it believed to men
ace its freedom. This is instructive; for the
hand of arbitrary power is first laid upon the
press, which is the public tongue. Its free
dom is the palladium of every truly free gov
ernment, and its utmost abuse is not an evil
as great as the constraint of its liberty. But
while we shall all probably agree upon this,
and while the chief advocates of the law in
question deny that they cherish any hostility
to the press, nothing is more notorious than
the discomfort Of many public men with the
incessant vituperation and Misrepresentation
to which they are subjected in the news
papers. The point is well worth considering
whether the press, which in its comments
constantly presents so lofty an ideal of public
life, does all it can to make that ideal practi-
cable. Indeed, the impartial reader-namely,
the intelligent and discriminate person who
is now perusing these lines,-must often ask
himself, as he rises from his daily feast of
the newspaper, whether it does not seem
that the great journal is quite as much intent
upon maintaining the consistency of its own
expressed opinions upon public men and
measures as upon securing that lofty con-
duct which it SO strenuously commends.
This course, indeed, is natural enough, be-
cause il its judgment be discredited its in
fuence is imperiled: and as the press con-
stantly expresses the most positive opinions
upon the most inadequate or even inaccurate
information, an apparent consistency often
requires it to persevere in conscious error.
A journal often wishes, undoubtedly, that it
had not taken the position which it has
taken, but which, having taken, it must
maintain, 81 am very sorry" said an edi-
tor, in effect, "to have called Mr.. Smith a
lioD n nd n fhiof-uorv ipdaa6
but, having done so, of course must stand
to it." He had a theory not only that a
journal should seem to be infallible, but that
he could persuade its readers that it was so.
But in the very instance of which he spoke
everybody knew that he was wrong, for the
dsprOving facts had been published, and his
refusal to acknowledge the truth, by showing
want of manly candor, harmed his journal
very much more than his persistence in a
SANDER helped its reputation Of infallibility.
The simple truth is that if an editor lacks
Judgment, he can not help showing it; and
nothing is palmer or more ludicrOus prool
of it than the effort to establish infallibility OF
to maintain consistency. Yet it is this per-
sonal and petty feeling which cripples the
press in the work of elevating the tone ol
public life. Each journal has two or three
fayorites, whose mouths, according to its re-
port, never open bus pearls and diamonds
drop profuseiy out. They are the greatest
ofstatesmen and most incorruptible of men
while the rest are wretched twaddlers and
pettifoggers, imposing themselves upon q
good-natured community as great men.
Party organs, of course, grind the party tune
but we speak of the press which, whatever
party it favors, means to show by the method
and tone of its advocacy that it does moi
serve the party, but the country by the party
The object of such press certainly should be
to cooperate with all good endeavor, and as
powerful means to loftier and purer poll
tics, to make public life an attractive career
| for the best men. At the best it has thorns
and repulsions enough. But does the press
try to remove them ?-Editor's Easy Chair
in Harper's Magazine for November.