Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-05-12
MORAL POWER OF PRESS,
SUBJECT OF ADDRESS
BY RABBI STEPHEN WISE
IFrom a Stan Correspondent

VI 49,
Press" DR.. stephen S. Wise, rabbi of
the Free Synagogue, New York, who
is popular among club women as an
orator, said IN part:
What the power of the press for
rood may become is touchingly illus
trated in darkest Russia today. Pas
sions for freedom in Russia are on
served only by reason of the consecra-
ton and self-forgetfulness of that
group of noble spirits, men and women
alike, who conduct the so-called I'M
foreground press, which is not printed
with inks and oils, but will the sweat
and blood of Russia's best. The car.
crowned with crime and shame mi
his loathsome bureaucracy would be
the unchallenged despots over the UNI
happy millions were 1t not for thai
gallant company. who. at the cost of
life, are doing what in them lies to
safeguard the liberty of the press as
the peoples hope and refuge.
THE need of the press is ever n
dauntless spirit. The need of our Amer
lean democracy is a press with a
dauntless spirit. The press is the
daily teacher of the whole nation, men
and ONE young and old. The gath
ering and distributing of news Is all
important function in our civilization.
but a press that limits its activities
to such fun~ctioning is defunct.
1T Is not possible daily to present
the facts of the worlds happenings
without some intimation of editorial
thought of feeling. A vital parsonage
in command of a newspaper office can
not be o~pinionless and neutral unless
the silence of neutrality be the out
come of barter open or covert. The
newspaper cannot. in the nature of
things. avoid being the interpreter as
well as reporter of the events of the
day which in the main 1t merely chron-
icles.
The newspaper that ~purports to be
nothing more than a purveyor of new
simply s~urrenders It's Views and usual
ly m~agnifles its crime by basely mir
roring the thought of its readers,
whether reasoned or un~reasoned. wise
or foolish, honest or false. There are
churches, too, which demand that the
pulpit preach from the pew-point
rather than from its own viewpoint,
but in the pulpit of such churches the
man will, upon investigation, be found
to be a Photographic manikin, repro
ducing with nnimpeachable fidelity
every opinion and judgment of the
pew.
IF high ideals of Journalism are to
be realized, the press must be CON
Quoted In a spirit of infexible fidelity
to truth. The press must seek the
truth and speak the truth. There is
n way of speaking the truth; there
are many ways of speaking an untruth,
1 hxy . darofn fAnanaA I,v Ax,Or All ufr
by implication, by inuendo.
THE really damaging untruthfulness
in journalism does not so much give
an inexact account of a single incl
dent as uniformly give forth the false
impression that disorder, indecency,
crime are more common than order and
cleanness and honor. Ever to make
the worse appear the larger part of life
is a graver violation of the moral code
han upon occasion to seek to make
the worse appear the better part.
THAT h press may greater its
moral power, the leaders in the world
of journalism must be adjured to free
themselves from the enslavments of
~partisanship and sectionalism, from the
tyrannies of passion and of prejudice.
Above all, the press must be kept free
from the enthralling power of money.
"a paper cannot sell itself without
selling out its readers. 1t cannot sur
render without b~etraying every pur-
chaser. Woe to our generation If the
curse of commercialism should utterly
blight the press, If it should come to
pass that the press be directed by the
greed of vested interests instead of
owing supreme allegiance to the moral
law if it's final accountability be to the
c~ounting-room and not to conscience.
The effected excuse for the moral de-
l%inquencies of the press that journalism
is a business involving the use of cap
ital should never be suffered to obscure
the truth hat the press stands in the
relation of trusteeship to the public it
ervices. The yellow journal is gov
erned by gold and gold alone; the yell
low journal is not the paper that prints
all or more than all the news for one
cent, but the newspaper. ever though
it costs two or three cents, which
prints some of the news and leaves
some of the news imprinted because
of orders from below rather than from
above.
Much fault has been found with the
undertaking tendencies of certain
lcW SpdpeIo LIN HldBuSiicG. Ap SAn6iS
service of the press during the last
century has been higher than the
vigor n fearlessness with which for
a decade it has searched out evil in
high places. Society can protect itself
against the censcienceless undertaking
journal; but itis helpless without the
protection of a paper whose tolerance
of evil money annot purchase, whose
silence touching wr~ong-doing no earth
ly W can command.
"The heads of the newspapers ought
to free themselves from the enslave-
ment of blind and meaningless par
tisanship. The press ought to be will
ing to bear a party name, but 1t ought
to be too great to wear a party muzzle.
Newspapers must free themselves
from the enslavement of ever siding
with the many. An American majority
is no more divine than a European
king. Against the doctrine of the
divine rights of kings and majorities
the press must oppose the doctrine of
the rights of minorities, however small,
of the duty of a a II needs must, 10
stand alone against the world.
"A gifted figure in contemporary
journalism has said that to protect the
people from themselves, to point out
their errors and to urge their rectifca-
ton is the mission of journalism-al-
L .-z~aA& ~ -.t~Lt - o1A11