The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-05-23
The Press.


dress on the Press, delivered before the
Psi Epsilon Society, in Boston, by
George Corning Hill, journalist Of
that city:
Obedient as the Press may seem to
be, it is, nevertheless, sleeplessly jeal-
GUS of its standing and influence, lest
they should be moderated or misap-
piled. 1t is an unerring measurer of
public men, and alone knows the little
ness of great ones. An integer in the
fabrics Of society, it has scorn of be-
ing thought to represent merely individ-
nal interests. The personal organ is
dead the day it is born. If to-day,
therefore, it is the advocate, tomorrow
it is the Judge. If it is the eulogist
now, it was the censor yesterday.
Though it have three hundred and
sixty-five opinions in the year, it is
nevertheless consistent always. Not as
vet has it found its ranks among learned
professors, and it is doubtful if it ever
will, for it must needs be practical
rather than learned. In this country it
is not recognized as the stepping stone
to public preferments, and it perhaps
gains by the dissertation. In England
It is the accepted touchstone of intel
lectual capacity, recruiting Parliament,
the Bar, and the schools of authorship.
In France it is the acknowledged finish
ing-school of publicists and statesmen,
and the entree into the best society.
With us, politicians would fain make
MILESTONE of it to sharpen and polish
their blades; advertisers find it almost
the whole of their intangible capital !;
lawyers and doctors resort to it as birds
do to the hedges for shelter; the grand
army of grievance-bearers marches up
and filings down its knapsacks full of
complaints at its feet (; the accused run
to it with their ready explanations; the
DETAINED with their denials and defences;
the philosophers with their rem edies,
the poets with their fol-de-rol, and the
other sex with their sleepless causes.
The world at large seeks the cover of its
sheltering fold. Everybody is eager to
proclaim his existence and something
more through its effectual agency,
they alone excepted who are in the real
secret and sit silent at the source of its
power. 1t is Argus, Briareus, Hercules
and Hermes rolled into one. Day and
night it keeps its messengers running,
flying, swimming, delving, looking and
listening, and with their faithful assist
ance it manages to turn the world in
side out. For it Schliemann uncovers
Homeric Troy to verify the immortal
story; Stanley cuts the dark core out of
the long forbidden fruit of Africa; gov
ernment despatch astronomers to the
far-off capes to report the transit of
Venus and correct the distance of the
sun; Sitting Bull harangues his harle
quin braves and swings round the circle
of Indian villages; the tireless interview
er pulls the bell at all front doors and
the local gossip CLUES his capacious ear &c
every private keyhoie. All this purely
for the production and dissemination
of intelligence, the valuable and value.
less. 1t supplants the orator, congresses
verbose debate into pregnant statement,
makes only straightforward business OF
legislation, and turns eloquence into the
raw staple of facts and figures. 1t edits
the telegraph, the mails, the caucus and
convention, the Legislature-science,
art and invention--commerce, law
and agriculture. 1t is the free publish.
er for them all-makes their announce
ments-adiusts their differences-and
assures their influence. It boils down
books; extracts the soul from treatises;
culls bouquets from the garden of the
poets; gives fexibility and present use
to learning; sets professors of Greek to
writing on international law; and, in
general, sifts, assorts and distributes
literature. Its remorseless appetite for
news-presenting horror and humors in
parallel columns-will, however, create
surfeit some time, and after that is
., yer will yield to the finer suggestions
of its palate for thought. just now il
is not greatly given to the nicer moral
shadings, but filings the pigment on the
canvass with rapid brush and exhibits
all things in the same fierce glare OF
light. But its loudness will gradually
be disciplined down to low-keyed sug.
gestiveness, with steadier aim and more
practised engineering; and it will ye,
become the true living outline of the
national literature.