Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1879-12-18
THR PRESS.
Wendell Phillips on tho Power and Greatness
OF American Jour nnlism

Extract from a Recent Lecture.
There are some calculations which
say that 100000 newspapers are
daily flung before the eyes of the hu
man race. l. would not be a large
calculation to say that there are from
20 100000 10 % 100000 OF human
beings that are daily and hourly sub
jugated to the government of this
great power. Well, when you con
template it, it seems as if there could
be no limits to such omnipotence
Rem mber human nature. Remem
r that The constant repetition. day
alter day, of an assertion, almost in
lime makes it absolutely impossible
for the human mind to reject il,
| There ls such an understandable con
| fdence in the human voice and the
human counteDance that If men con-
stantlv, and in great numbers, re-
peat an assertion, it requires capacity
such as is rarely found to MAINTAIN
against such an overwhelming con
viction solitary belief; and when
idea to $4,000, 900 minds at once, fol
low it up the next dav, illustrate ii
by logic and history, make Vt person
al, make it ethical, make it abstract
put every possible form upon it, and
add to it every possible attraction
tor three hundred successive DAYS,
| Won see how resistless to the ordinary
resistance of human nature must be
to snch power. P,lmers;on eald,
in the hight of his popul arity:
81 never dare to contradict a journal, no
matter how personal the assault, no matter
how offensive the affirmation. know they
have 500 more days to repeat it and make
fun of me-"
And 40 the magnanimnus and Oh
stina.e Premier remained silent rath-
or than submit himself to the sarcas
tic rejoinder of the press The press
of seventy years ago was nothing
The battle of Waterloo, the greatest
event in European history for the
last hundred years. only gained one.
third of a column ia the London
Times. have had occasion to
search for records OF events that oc-
cured just previous and subsequent
was dragged through the streets OF
Boston in 1885 and I found it impns
sible, with all the journals of that
city before me-, to make out anything
Ike detailed account of an aft air
which shook the city while it lasted,
40 meagar was the journalism of that
day. When you go back prior to the
battle of Waterloo,tbe London Times
consisted of nothing but advertls-
ments and news.
1t never ventured an opinion, en-
gagged in no discussion, had no lead
'ug articles, no editorials | remem-
Der that when Harrison died, in Is4l.
when the news of it reached Spring
tield, ILL.,, ten days after the Presi-
deot died, Abrsh Lincoln, who
was arguing case in court when
the news entered the court room, de-
MED it, on the ground that it was
not possible that it could have been
known so soon. To day you buy q
paper in the street. aud You read the
words that Queen Victoria is at tina,
moment speaking to her Parliament !;
or you can buy an evening paper and
read what Bismarck said before din
ner. The man who reads the paper
has a telegraph;c wire that connects
him with the world, and the man
Who does not might as well be Rob
inson Crusoe on the island.
The press is the exclusive litera
ture Of the mass To the millions l,
~ literature, church and college
Four men out of five SO dom read 3
book. The daily press is to them pa
rent and school. church and college
counselor and amusement Old
Fletcher Saltonn, of Scotland, sad,
with infinite sagacity, LET me make
the ballads, and care not who make
The laws" To-day, If he lived. h.
would change his u;terance to, "Le,
mo make the newspapers, and care
not what il preached from the pulpn
nr what is enacted in Congress .
Fhe elevation OF man above the
rulgerv of work which marks our
race in this country IS slmos, exclus
vely due TO the intellectual devel
opement which has resulted from the
press.
II ia the trained mind which the
press produces, it ia not the infor
nation solely that it communicates
tt is the training of the mind it ad
ministers that results in the alertness.
,agacity, persisten, and unconqupra
BILE effort to subjagate nature, and in
the course of two or three generations
1t has actually changed the grain of
the race. This CONSTANT friction OF
mind, of creation OF thought, that one
gets from the constant study Of the
press, IN skes this great nation The
press and the telegra IN wire are an
infinitely greater cement of the forty
) ates than the golded band OF the
Mississippi that was thought to tie
twenty States. II is the oneness OF
intellectual life, born of the thousand
headed monster, that makes the ce
meut of the Uaion. America owes
her press half, If not more, of her
m aterial nroSnarity