Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1902-08-05
New York journalism.

The last number of The Commoner
publishes an editorial from Leslie's
Weekly, which gives the editors opin
ion of Mr.. Bryan in a dirty sort of Ian
guage that Western people do not ex-
pect to hear used under any circum-
stances, BY decent or respectable people.
The Commoner publishes this editorial
as sample of the style and animus
of the type of newspapers in New York
City which call themselves ''indepen-
dent" The Commoner makes no fur
Their comment upon it, and that is the
right thing to do, for The Commoner
is read by clean, decent, intelligent
people who can be trusted to form their
own estimate of the man who could
write that sort of an article
1t is an interesting subject for the
student of social science,-although it
is also sad one-the decadence of the
average editorial to be found in New
York papers, as they now look to those
of us who knew them when Horace
Greedy and his fellow giants were in
their editorial chairs. We have some
times heard people account for it by the
fact that now the editors are hired men.
That is fallacy in our view. The fact
that man writes for hire does not alter
the man. A decent man will write de-
Gently, whether he is running his own
newspaper or editing one he does not
own. He will write decently because
that is the only way decent man can
write. A BLACKBOARD will write black
guardism in his own newspaper and
will write it also if he is working as a
salaried editor. He cannot write any
other way, for the simple reason that he
is blackguard The difference be-
tween the New York papers of Horace
Greeley's day, and the present, comes
from difference in the character of the
writers, as men, The sad and interest
ing fact is that such men can get such
places now. Why is it In the last
analysis it will be traced to the readers
of the papers. The New York papers
of course depend chiefly upon New
York readers for their circulation.
The solution must be that the corpora
tons who own the New York news
papers, hire such men to write their edi-
torials and other matter, as are in
sympathy with the ideals of their aver
age reader. New York is a very COR
rupt city in every way. Its religion, its
philosophy, its morals, its politics, and
every leading element of its life are sat
urated with hypocricy, selfishness and
materialism. The newspaper requires
only a trifle closer analysis than the
stage to show itself as true an index to
the temper of its constituency. Cities
grow bad as they grow large. But New
York has not grown nearly as fast as
Chicago yet it has grown bad faster
than Chicago-and faster than any other
American city except Philadelphia
Why should New York, having grown
in population much less rapidly than
Chicago, grow Sc much faster in gen
eral wickedness Probably because
Chicago owes its growth chiefly to an
influx of people from all parts of the
Central Northwest,-a region inhab-
tied by people who stand very much
higher in all the essentials of manhood
and womanhood than those of any other
section of our country east of the Rocky
Mountains Without going into par
ticulars it may be safely said that New
York was much less fortunate, in the
sources of its growth, than Chicago.
The people may not know it; but the
fact is that they have more influence
than the editors and proprietors in
moulding the newspapers they read