St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-07-30

las Oh history, but he is great according to
MS time. Steam is his legionry. The force
OF millions is transfused to him by electric
ity. Sitting in his study he cons map on
which, by cosmography, or Photographic
accuracy, the world is drawn, with all its con-
tinents, its great empires, its obscure vii
lagos, the heart of Africa, the windings of its
rivers, the network Of its railroads the freez-
ing terrors of the pole, the obscure policy of
Chinese provinces, the great ocean with its
streams, its trade winds and its currents, as
plainly as the pageantry of the skies in the
clearest night. The touch of hand in Lon
don fires the cannon in the valley of the
Nile. One electric thrill in Paris, and fleets
resting in Chinese ports spread their great
wings and sail away to the work of war. An
other touch in New York and a financial
storm strews the streets of many cities with
the wrecks of stately fortunes
In doing all this the statesman, soldier or
financer may blunder There is now no
waiting for boards of inquiry, for parlia-
mentary investigations or judicial proceed
ings to convince the constituencies that a
blunder has been made. There is in every
civilized land AM other governmental function
in perpetual session, with its members in
every village. 1t, too, is strong with the
forces of steam and electricity. 1t, too,
listens at the telephone. 1t has no common
policy, for it cannot conspire, and must to-
night print with its thousands of hands that
which millions must read tomorrow morn
ing and decide upon before tomorrow night.
1t cannot be corrupted, for it is an element
as universal as sunlight or air. It cannot be
diverted from its course, for it is the free
thought of universal man. 1t stands hind
all rulers and public officers like the monitor
behind the guests of Egyptian feasts, to warn
that all things are transitory.
This force is the newspapers. These are
the great debaters of our time. 1t is by
them that political issues are formulated. de-
cided, pressed to results or abandoned.
These are they who wither the unearned
laurel even while it is fresh upon the brow
of fraud, and strike down the meritless con-
queror under the very keystone of the arch
of triumph; who lift up the slave with all his
weight OF chains from the agonies of his
servitude; who lay bare the falsity of some
hoary dogma, confirm the truth of
some sou-saving yet endangered faith; who
speak at once with one voice; who lack not
audiences, and will be heard; whose sem
fences pass not away in the air, but are
craven as upon rock to be re-read pondered
and shown to the neighbor with ''See
this ~ and not delivered in rude paraphrase
as the hear-say of some one-sided speech.
One newspaper is frequently wholly in the
wrong, but it is certain that others, speaking
contemporaneously, will be wholly right.
The public is not enforced to wait for the adj
journment and alterations of debate. The
bane and antidote are administered together.
Formerly great political changes were al
ways disastrous. They produced proscrip-
tions, outlawries, confscatons and death.
They unsettled commerce. This was not in
accordance with the general operations of
nature in the physical world, nor with the
changes of the social state under natural
causes, where great changes are generally
made with great benefit and with little incl
dental disturbance. These disastrous effects
from great social or political changes are now
not frequent. There is now universal and
simultaneous preparation for them, and there
is also that repairing energy of all the thought
and all the hands of every community in a
great nation put to work at once, directed
without conflict and working with under
stanking, so that party which fails decs-
lively does not survive to work ruin
for years, until gradually demol-
ished by ancient processes. 1t may have
been to millions a cloud by day and pillar
of fire by might, and yet it dissipates or fades
in moment, and as it does so there appears
in advance other guides who lead the people
to better destines.
So in former times, consistency by the in
dividual was almost fate. He could not
escape from his environment. His party
always remained and he must remain with
it, subject to all its errors, and often seal his
devotion with his death. The Gracch at
tempted to do what any public man may
now do with praise and reward, if he can
give reason for his action through the all
speaking voice of the press. But they were
massacred Claudius sought adoption into
a pleban family for political purposes. The
apostate patrcian fell beneath the swords of
Milo's gladiators and the diatribes of Cicero
are all that is given to us upon which to
judge what were the motives and character
Of this man who was unquestionably beloved
by the Roman populace. How faint are the
voices of Bruno and Savonarola, speaking as
they do from the stake and in the agony Of
consuming flames. How resonant they
would have been then and now over the
space of centuries could they have been
spoken to all Italy on one morning.
In my judgment the origin of this peculiar
power of the newspaper is very reticent. II
is loose observation to refer more than iti
faintest beginning to the time of Queen
Anne. Nothing like our newspapers then
existed. Swift and BolingDroke were how.
ever, among the first editors. The genius OF
Jonathan Swift stirred the heart of Ireland
by the DRAPER letters, and Bolingbroke in
the CfuJtSnldB made trouble In the time OF
the Hanover succession. Then followed
Junius in England and Thomas Paine in
America. Even Ben amin Franklin failed,
with all his sagacity, to discover the forces Of
his own vocation. The productions Of which
/ have spoken were essays or letters. 1t was
the age Of pamphlets. 1t was the age when
the newspaper became the mode Of commu-
nicating written defamation, and it marks
the first steps Of the change from the har-
ranguer to the leader. From the time when
Samuel johnson, starving in his garrett,
ported from memory the debates in parlia-
ment, attributing them to the fictitious coun-
ellis Of an ideal country, to orators under
feigned names in the certainty that other
wise, sapient house of commons or house
of lords would lay him and the publisher
by the heels in the Fleet, to now, when
every village Hampden bcsets the village
editor for a full report of his speech is a
change as marvellous as any recorded in the
history or thought.
The press burst its bonds and carried off
the gates of its captivity about ninety-four
years ago, and it did this in France The
people had risen in fury from beneath the
expressions of hundreds of years. The king,
the nobility, the clergy, had been swept from
the face Of the land. The prison walls Of
thought and knowledge had fallen outward
and from the charnel which they enclosed,
from the putrescent dungeons rose and
walked forth the lettering forms Of Free
Thought and Free Speech, and stood before
the nations, dazzled by sunlight seen for the
first time, and girt with armor under which
they staggered and then grew strongas angel
militant. TO think and to write so that the
nation MIGHT act xCprp their nbviOuG mi