Connecticut western news., 1881-06-15
ADDRESS BY GEORGE WILLIAM
 CURTIS.
Delivered Before the N. Y. State
 Press Association, at Utica.

the New York Press Association was held in Library Hall, Utica, and aftel transaction of the usual business the members took an excursion to the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence
 On the evening of the first days ses sion George William Curtis of Harper
 Weekly, delivered an address before the Association and 2,5OO ladies and gentle men.
 MT. Curtis said: New York, the great est of the States, has always shown the ' generous carelessness of greatness. O. the old thirteen she has been most in. different 10 her own ren own. Yet the ! history of no State is more inspiring than ours. But there is one event ir the history of New York which is especially to be remembered by us, and upon this occasion. It belongs with her early Indian policy, with her bold demand for the repeal of the stamp act, with her declaration of no taxation without representation, with her proud prophecy ot independence, her non- importation agreement, her stamp act Congress and her immortal days of Oriskany and Saratoga. It was in New York that the freedom of the press was first asserted on this Continent, and triumphantly maintained.
 This is the event in the history of New York which this meeting and every recurring meeting of this association ought to commemorate. In New York the press was liberated. In New York the cardinal principle that truth is not libel was affirmed. In the Zenger trial in New York, as Gouverneur Mor- ris said, shone the rosy dawn of that liberty which afterward revUlutionized America. And what @ tremendous power was thus emancipated for with free press popular government began. In broad sense, 8 free press is the greatest of all powers of civilization, be- cause the highest, the most beautiful, the most benefcent aspirations of hu- man genius in every branch of literature accessible only by the press. In vain for us the prophets had spoken, the Apostles taught, in vain the poets had sung, the philosophers had explored, the inventors had experimented and the historians written for us H,mer and Dante and Shakespeare had been dumb; l 1uCet1C CA hHu DdCOU, lHuCN llluSS atuI Tacitus, Gibbon and Grote, Bryant and Bancroft, Motley and Emerson and Longfellow had been practically and popularly unknown, except for the mighty and familiar magic of the press.
 POTENCY OF A FREE PRESS.
 But ours is more limited signifcation of the word. It is not as the universal disseminator of creative literature that we celebrate the press, but as the quick ear and loud tongue of the worlds life Its mere swiftness and vast reiteration are overwhelming. Its echoes reverberate around the globe. A single copy of a newspaper would be snowflake melting as it fell, but myriad copies are a mighty storm that transfgures the landscape. The press instantly fills the world with the name of the man whom it mentions and with the slightest event that 1t records. Four centuries ago Columbus discovered America, and only { by the slow lapse of time was the world aware of new continent. To-day, before the horses are dry from the wild charge at Balaklava, the heart of Chris. tendon is thrilling with the heroic story and the last sigh of the murdered Czal is waited, almost before the breatE ceases, to the cabin on the Oregon iron tier.
 But while we all learn from the news paper what is happening in every land great multitudes learn from 1t what tC think of every event. The unfolding of their paper is the opening of thei minds. The newspaper is the daily critic and guide, the creator and tht voice of public opinion. It can flash tn, whitening light of publicity on thieves and rascals of high or low degree; or i can slip the slide an@' hide crime in dark ness. It can be bright and blessed beacon warning the mariner of reefs ant shoals, or the false light of the wrecke turing to death. In our modern civil ization. therefore, the new paper is fel to be the highest power. Every goot instinctively the enemies of society ain fraudulently to control or forcibly l. silence it.
 EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITY.
 By this conceded liberty, this ex haustless resource and resistless enter prise, at once the daily mirror of tn
 world and the reporter of privat
 thought, the power of the press i tremendous, and the responsibility commensurate with the power Whe1
 the press is perfectly free, the edito must himself be the censor, for freedom
 alone does not secure honesty an, fidelity.
 do not need to be told that an edito may be an honest partisan. I do no doubt that I am surrounded by hosts c
 such editors at this moment. We al probably belong to party. Publi
 causes are to be promoted and publi progress is to be achieved only by con certed and organized action, that is, b. party. Not alone in great emergencie of the State, but upon general princi ples and tendencies of government W must all take sides. To hesitate lik Faulkland between the roundhead an
 the cavalier, seeing only too clearly tn treason of both, and holding liberty re sponsible for the crimes committed i her name, is to falter and fall, futil patriot, 8 paralyzed man. We must al ) wear the blue and buff of the sons C } liberty, or the scarlet livery of the king regulars. Naturally the army in who's ranks we march becomes identified wit
 the cause. Its colors, it's music, it battle-cries become those of the caus , itself. Discipline and conformity ar Z held to be paramount necessities tha by obedience and CO., operation the arm 5 may have the solid force of 8 torrent in stead of the scattered weakness of } shower. So man comes to confoun ) his party with his country; and to b
 wholly partisan seems to him to be onl , patriotic.
 ! Associated with ilIustrious achieve l ments for his country and for mankin ! the party name becomes as sweet to hi 2 ear and heart as, after famous victories the name of his regiment to a soldier The party traditions seem to him a