The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-10-28
The Press and Public Men.

The admirable article on this subject
by General H. V. Boynton in the Octo-
Der number of the Century was referred
to in the last ,mber of the WATCH
MAN, cut the main trend of thought
was not indicated. 1t contains 80 many
statements which are obviously true,
yet are not generally understood, that a
few quotations will be timely, while the
whole article is we'll worthy of careful
perusal by everybody interested in pub
lie affairs. How often do we hear it
said that the press is inaccurate and SEN
sational? So frequent is this charge
that many believe it to be literally true.
Hear what Gen. Boynton says about it:
"The usual criticism of the average pub
lie man upon the newspaper press is that it
is both inaccurate and sensational. AS to
the sensational in journalism-what the rep
resentatives of the press know in regard to
the inside of national affairs and the doings
of public men, and do not print, would con-
stitute the real sensations. If any half
dozen of the older correspondents in Wash
ington should agree to sit down and send to
the country, upon any given night, their
knowledge of such affairs as are alluded to,
their narrative, which should not vary from
the truth in any particular, or be in any
sense exaggerated, would come as near pull
ing down the very pillars Of the temple as
anything that could be put in print.
1t is within the experience of every cores
pendent that many of the solemn denials
made to meet charges which in their essen
tials were true, and which have contributed
largely to the prevailing idea of inaccuracy
in the press, were false denials, verging in
their falsity upon moral perjury. Denials
are matter Of course. Their truthfulness
in majority of cases is a matter of doubt.
The press makes many mistakes.
The wonder is that in the rush of its present.
ing an eptome Of the worlds daily doings
at each breakfast table it does not make a
thousand errors for one. 1t makes very few
deliberately. And many of those statements
concerning which loud-mouthed and quib-
bling denials are often accepted are true in
their essentials Said a man of national
fame, who had commanded one of the Union
armies, had been the governor of his state,
and has served with distinction in congress,
in furnishing some sensational but true
statements for publication: This is exact,
but II you ever give me as authority, | will
publicly deny your Dispatch"
Referring to that class found every.
where who assert that the attacks"
of the press are malicious and not
worth noticing, General Boynton says:
There is nothing truer in regard to pub
lie life in Washington, as is known to all
who have facilities for closely observing it,
than this, that, as a general rule, those who
protest to the public the oftenest and the
loudest that they pay no attention to the
press, are the very ones who watch its utter
ances most closely, and generally with more
nervousness and with more cause for APP
prehension than any others. AS a general
rule the best men, the ablest men, and all
men of all parties who are straightforward
in their purposes and in their lives, who
perform their duties with due regard to
their responsibilities and their oath of office,
trust the representatives of the press
the most implicitly. These, as a class,
never suffer from the criticisms of the press,
and it would be very difficult to point to a
singl man among them who has ever been
perslstently and unjustly misrepresented,
or 10 whose defense the great majority of
Washington writers have not constantly
rallied whenever his public acts have been
untruthfully assailed. AS arule, and rule
with few exceptions, those whose course
will not bear the light, and who cannot
stand upon their real records, are the sole
ones in public life who either dread the
press or suffer from it"
Again, on the same subject, the
writer says:
MANY public men talk glibly of the at
lacks of the press, as il merely to mention
the matter were ample defense The least
reflection will show this use of the term to
be misnomer. Public men, through
variety of shortcomings, attack themselves.
Whenever these departures from duty are
accurately made known, the press is simply
the mouth piece of what the public has a
right to know, and what the press is in duty
bound to communicate. The so-called at
tacks are by public men themselves, and
are directed against themselves. The press
simply records the varied attempts which
these men make upon their own political
lives and fortunes"
The following paragraph character
ICES class of office-holders, some of
whom live in Vermont. General
Boynton does good piece of word
painting in this description;
"There is one class OF public men who
deserve especial notice. They are always
numerous, though generally the least In
fluential. They came into public position
through the sufferance of their fellow-men,
either as elective or appointive officers, and
their duties are to perform the business OF
the public. They immedi ltely withdraw
themselves from their creators, and in their
discharge OF the business assigned them
proceed upon the false theory, theory
natural enough to small minds, that they
are conducting their own affairs; that any
inquiries in regard to the matters with
which they are charged are as much an
impertinence as II one should walk into