The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1880-02-04
POWER OF THE PRESS.
tonne EXTRACT. from wendell PhnIps' ore
f1on on this subject.

Mr.. Phillips, in Steinway Hall on
E The Press, its power for Good and
Evil" among other things, said:
There were careful authorities which
estimated that 10, 600, 900 Of newspapers
and books, the products of the press,
were daily flooded before the eyes of the
people OF the world. It would not be q
large calculation to say that there were
from 10000, 600 TO e, 600 600 human
beings who were daily and hourly sub
jected to the government of this great
power. When they came to think of the
press, with its 100000 agents, drop
ping an idea into $4,000, 900 minds at
once, and following it up the next day,
and surveying it from every point, Illus
trating it by anecdote and history, sur
veving it with logic or sarcasm, making
fun of it, making it personal, making it
ethical, making 1t abstract, putting
every possible attraction for 9e5 success
Bive days, and they could see how resist
less to the ordinary resistance of human
nature must be such a power
He remembered cousin of his VINO
was bitter Federalist, when, "a the
fierce conflict after the war of 1921,
Democrat and a WING would hardly
walk ON the same side of the atfeet, who
subscribed, on the ts5 day of January
for Democratic paper for the fun of it.
He thought that at his breakfast he
might be tickled with the absurity Of
what it said. On the 4th day of Nove1n.
Der following he voted the Democratic
ticket. Laughter. Such was the re-
sistless power OF repetition. Lord
PalmeTston had said in the very hight
of his popularity, I" never dare contra
dict a journal, no matter what the
assault or how offensive the affirmation.
l know it has S65 more days in which to
repeat it, and to make fun of me" An
so the magnanimous end obstinate Pre-
mier remained silent rather than sub
iee5 himself to the sarcastic rejoiners OF
he press.
Man was put In communication with
the civilization Of the age by the press.
His hearers should remember, also, that
the press was tne exclusive literature OF
the masses. To the millions it was
literature, church and college. -Four
out of five persons never read = book.
Il would be hardly toe much to say that,
speaking generally, four men out of five
seldom read a book. The daily prSsb
was then to them parent, School, church
and college, counselor, and amusement.
II was their whole. A Scotchman had
said: " Let me make the ballads, and
care not who makes the laws To-day,
if he lived he would change that utter
ance, and say: " Let me make the
newspapers, and I dent care what is
preached from the pulpit or what is en-
acted in Congress" He remarked that
no doubt the material prosperity upon
which we so E1itch prided ourselves, the
infinite invention and the total subiuga-
ton of nature and its forces to The will
of man, were elnnost exclusively due
to the intellectual DEVELOPMENT |
which resulted from the press. 1t was
the trained mind which the press pro-
duces. In the course of three or four |
generations it had actually changed the /
brain of the race. Now the infant |
looked over the edge of the cradle, /
craWled out of it and patented an i'm /
prOvement before ii was six months old. |
Laughter. The press and the tele-
graph wire were an infinite stronger
cement of the Union OF the forty States
han that golden band, the Mississippi
River, which was thought 20 tie twenty
States together. It was the openness Of
life born &C this many
1eaded monster which formed the cement
IF the Union. He thought that America
owed ene-half of its material prosperity,
if not more, to the development of the
press.
When he went back to the battle of
Waterloo he found the London Times
consisted of nothing but advertisements
1t did not volunteer an opinion 1t had
no discussion, no leading articles, no edi-
,orials. The press, in the sense in which
hey spoke of it tO-day-the journalism
If the mOrning-was almost the creation
If the last fifty or sixty years the effect
which we must try to discover must be
found within the last half century. He
we'll when Harrison died in
840-an event which, considering its
)arty relations, was exceedingly critical
md important in the history of the
yet when the news of it
cached Springfield, Ill, ten days after
he Presidents death, it found Abraham
lincoln arguing a case in court and he
enied it, because, he said, it was not
'Ossible, if it were true, that it should
e known there so soon. Applause and
aughter.. To-day, buy a newspaper in
he street, and you may read the words
hat Queen Victoria is at that moment
peaking to her Parliament. They
hight buy any evening paper at night,
nd read what Bismarck said before
inner. Such was the enterprise and
le vast sweep of the press to-day that
axes humanity one The man that
ads had a telegraph wire which con-
ected him with the world, and the
an that did not read might as we'll be
Obinson Crusoe on his Island. Zap
ause,l