Year: 1871

NEWSPAPER MoEALITY.-- 1t is a great
mistake to suppose that newspapers can
not deal with certain universal vices be-
cause TO speak of them Is to advertise
them and really multiply vice 1t is in
tins, as elsewhere, a question OF method.
\ preacher may 50 set forth Christianity
as to disgust every sensible hearer, and
repe! those whom another shall persuade.
as the south wind persuades buds in
spring There Is no difficulty, however
unmanageable, that newspaper may not
deal with successfully if 1t deals skiiiully.
But the timIdity and the pruriency that
are sometimes observable in the press are
due mainly to the public it>eit-to the
reader II the debasing influence of
French fiction Is sometimes seen in the
English novel, 1t Is because the results of
that influence are found TO be acceptable
TO the reader. The excuse of a single
reader-of that one, for instance, who Is
at this moment reading these iines-is,
that one man does not count that his in
fuence j. nothing. And it is remarkable
that ge which breaches 20 loudly the
gospel Of individual action. which asserts
the very unit Of society to be the indvid-
ual, should be the time also in which ey-
cry man is SO likely to deprecate his indi-
ylduai influence and weight, and so apt to
toTbear the attempt TO exercise it.


1t would be curious to trace in tt is
country which Is politically organized
upon the declaration Of equal individual
right, the reasons of this want of conf
dence in individual influence. and the lack
of a deep sense OF individual responsible
ty. Much, OF course, Is to be attributed
to the universal Difference to the majority.
\ De Quincy says \ man who IN
dulges himself in murder will presently
come to Sabbath-breaking and procrastin-
alton, 50 those who defer to the majority
in all great public concerns will find them
sc YES easily yielding to it in private du-
ties. The tendency Of popular system
IS to force a man TO regard himself as one
drop only IN the flood OF the majority. He
lorgcts tha: the flood Is only an aggregate
Of drops So he does not feel that the
public Is but the private multiplied lie
reads an offensive paper, he sees mean
action The public likes it - he says
with 4 shrug and a sigh. Who likes it?
Does he like it? Does his neighbor like
1t? Why do they not bring their infu-
ence to bear? What he says is only an
excuse for his cowarGice


If the public-if any number of persons
wish the press to grapple with great
evils, to expose evil-doers of every kind,
and not only to rebuke vice in the slums,
but dishonesty and corruption in high po-
sition, it must sturdily sustain it, while it
holds it TO the strictest responsibility. 1t
was Cain who asked, " Am | my brothers
keeper p and there are many and many
who still excuse themselves under the same
plea. While, therefore, the honorable
editor, whatever he may say, does not
make his paper-as he ought not to make
it-a mere dead wall upon which every
quack and criminal may paste his placard
at pleasure, but aims to make the honest, !
not the dishonest, convenience of the pub
lie his private profit, the individual reader
has the same interest with the editor in
the general well-being. He must do his
part. 1t is not, indeed, entirely true
either that the press makes the public, or
the public the press. But there is an i'm
mense reciprocal influence. Aud if the
parent walking in the streets is shocked to
see in the shop windows certain kind of
illustrated paper, to whose debasements
his children even in passing are exposed,
1t is not enough for him to protest that the
public delights in filth; for some terrible
Nathan will say to every such David,
Have you done, and are you doing, what
you can as an individual TO correct the
taste which demands those pictures, or do
you idly think that one man can do moth
ing Every man who does a great work
believes, as effective reformers always be-
lieved, that one with God is majority
EDITOR's EASY CHAIR, in Harper's Maga-
zine for Jnly.