The Hawaiian gazette., 1903-12-15
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM.

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newspaper was always an organ, COM
mitted to persons or dogmas for better
or worse but the growing catholicity OF
! thought in the United States has Great
ed a new journalism which finds it's
goal in impartial public service. There
are few If any old-time organs left save
in little country places where the pub
Usher crooks the pregnant hinges of
the knee that job work may follow
fawning. True the party papers re-
main, but we know of none that COM
mands influence and at the same time
Is known to be irrevocably committed
to any party platform or TO any party
man.
Where, for instance, Is there n Re-
publican or Democratic paper of stand
ing in the United States which does not
maintain a wholesome independence
within the party? Take the San Fran
cisco press, for example. The Call and
Chronicle are Republican yet they both
opposed the effort of the Republican
organization to send Dan Burns to the
United States Senate and both fell out
with the administration of Governor
Gage. If they had not done so they
would have won the contempt of
honest men. The Examiner has never
hesitated to oppose the Democratic
bosses on occasion and was at odds
with Mayor Phelan at times and with
Democratic Senator Stephen NJ. White.
Crossing the continent to New York,
not single thick-and-thin organ, of
any consequence, Is found en-route.
Not leading paper of Chicago, Den
yer, st. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland
or Buffalo permits itself to be called
the adjunct of any party machine; and
there is not one which takes orders
from outside political manipulators.
All of them try to win confidence by
proclaiming the independence of their
editorial opinions.
In an experience of New York jour-
nalism extending over many years the
writer of this topic does not recall but
one out-and-out, bred-in-the- bone and
tattooed-in-t the flesh daily organ of
major significance and that was the
New York Star, the organ of John
Kelly and Tammany Hall. Lieutenant
Governor Dorsheimer was it's editor
and c. p. Huntington was it's finan-
cial hacker Brains, enterprise and
capital were concerned with it, yet not
and when the paper died it had taken
$500, 900 to prepare the way. This enor-
nous loss was incurred in paying Sat-
urday night deficits.
The New York papers are all inde-
The Republican Tribune OPP
poses the Plat machine, the World and
Sun oppose Tammany, the Hearst pa
pers stand for any form of independ
ence that pays, the Herald was al
ways ndependent-which accounts for
its phenomenal SUGGESTIVE Times,
once independent Republican is now in
dependent Democrat-and the Evening
Post is free from any kind of political
The most influential
paper in Brooklyn, the Eagle, Is Demo
cratic when the Democracy is right
and liberal and broadminded' always.
SO marked is the public dislike of the
newspaper organ that there is today no
great paper in America bearing the
name of its party and living up to the
name. New York and Chicago Demo
Gratis" and Republicans" have been
started often enough, only to fail. |
Even minor Republicans" and Demo-
Gratis" do not do well unless they are
alone In the field. The only
way to take the hoodoo off the name is
to make the principles of the paper
the title. Hence the Spring.
field Republican, Mugwump), the
Rochester Democrat, Rep.), the st.
Louis Globe-Democrat, RepD, and so I
on to the end of a long chapter. 1t
takes but the bare announcement by a
paper that it is irrevocably committed
to certain line of ideas, to deprive it
of popular confidence. The public will
have independence, hospitality to new
ideas elasticity OF mind, freedom to do
what is best, in all its public teachers,
whether they are journals, colleges or
preachers. The disciple of stagnation,
the man of one narrow idea, gets left |
That this journalistic independence
is not liked by party leaders is mat
ter of course. But the paper which has
no enemies has no achievement; and it
is better to win the confidence of the
public than that of the few men who,
in the name of party regularity, would
abase journalism to their personal
ends.