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Horace Greeley (1811-1872). Newspapers and Their Influence. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays

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Horace Greeley (1811-1872). Newspapers and Their Influence. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record David J. Brewer, et al., eds.  The World’s Best Essays.  1900. Newspapers and Their Influence
By Horace Greeley (1811–1872) Complete. From the Jeffersonian of March, 1838.

WITHIN the last fifty years, a new power—infantile, inefficient, and disregarded through the previous century; unknown to all former time—has arisen to accelerate the onward march of human improvement and influence, vitally, the destinies of the world. Under its potent sway has been established the great tribunal of public opinion, to which the haughtiest despot feels himself amenable—before which the most insidious, the most daring, and the most impregnable enemy of the liberties and the happiness of man, is made to tremble. This power is that of the press,—and pre-eminently that of the periodical press. We do not say that the amount of truths actually disseminated and inculcated through the medium of periodicals is greater than through books. That may, or may not be. But the diffusion of intelligence through books is irregular and casual, while through periodicals it is systematic and certain. The despot in his cabinet, engaged in forging new fetters for his subjects—the military chief, who dares contemplate employing the arms of his soldiery for the subversion of his country’s liberties—the demagogue in the midst of his cabal, who, while fawning on and caressing the dear people, is seeking to abuse their confidence to the gratification of his own base ambition, or baser rapacity—all alike with the humbler enemies of social order, and the supremacy of law, have an instinctive terror of a free, virtuous, able, and independent press.

1   They feel that its eye is inflexibly upon them,—that it is attracting toward them the stern gaze of the millions, whom they would fain make their dupes and their victims,—that the result of its scrutiny will be evinced, but transiently in astonishment, and then in indignant hostility and resolute defiance. They know that the hollowness of their professions, the selfishness of their designs, will be certainly discovered, and unsparingly exposed by this potent champion of truth and right. Knowing all this, they often seek, when they cannot suppress, to turn this mighty power against its natural alliance with the many, and to render it the supple instrument of their purposes,—the dispenser of darkness instead of light. In this they are but partially and transiently successful; and the attempt is a reluctant and indirect tribute to the innate power of the press. Of the many important truths which the last half-century has established, we regard none as more settled or indubitable than this,—that not only is it morally impossible that a government should remain essentially despotic or wholly corrupt in any country where a free press is sustained and cherished, but it is just as impossible to maintain a truly Republican government, or any considerable extent of territory in the absence of such a press. Intelligence is the lifeblood of liberty; and intelligence will be diffused efficiently, and certainly, only through known and appropriate channels. The most powerful tyrants have ever most dreaded the influence of a free press. Napoleon, when he resisted the demand of Lafayette, that the press should be unshackled, did so, expressly on the ground that a compliance would expel him from France. Did such a fear ever darken the mind of Washington?

2   Thus far, we have spoken of the press only as the great ally of human liberty, and of each of them as dependent on the other for its healthful, beneficial, and secure existence. Can we err in the moral we would deduce therefrom, that it behooves the friends and supporters of liberty, as a first duty to the good cause, to their country, themselves, and their children, to cherish and sustain the public press,—to elevate its character and extend the sphere of its usefulness? Can there be a doubt of the correctness of this general proposition? If not, let us proceed to its practical application.

3   It is the duty of every citizen of a free country, who is entitled to exercise the inestimable right of suffrage, to take regularly and read thoroughly, at least one public journal. This is due, first to his country, which has imposed on him a vitally important duty, for the maintenance of the public liberties, and of good government in the just expectation that he will qualify himself for its faithful and proper discharge. This, it would seem needless to say, he cannot do without an accurate acquaintance with the politics and events of the day, so far at least as their general features are regarded.

4   He cannot safely or honorably calculate on acquiring this knowledge from an occasional glance at a newspaper in a bar-room, nor by taxing altogether the good-will of his neighbor. He owes it to himself, also, to take a paper, since, without the information which can only be surely acquired from the public journals, he will speedily fall behind his neighbors and townsmen in intelligence, in influence, in their respect, and—if he be not vastly self-conceited—in his own. He is liable to daily imposition, not only from the falsehoods and misrepresentations of demagogues, but his ignorance of the fluctuations of prices, in money matters, of the prospects of crops, of war, etc., places him at the mercy of every knave to profit by his infatuation. He must be innocent, indeed, if he flatters himself that none will have the heart to do it.

5   But the man of family rests under a still further obligation. The education of his children is among the most sacred of his duties. We need not here expatiate on the variety and extent of acquirements which in our day are properly comprehended in the term Education. No man now supposes that a mere ability to read and write endurably, with a smattering of two or three other branches of school instruction, is the thing. When we speak of an education, we mean simply the inculcation of such fundamental truth as is necessary to enable a youth to discharge properly and creditably the duties pertaining to his position in life,—no matter whether it be that of a farmer, a blacksmith, a miller, or a lawyer. Whatever avocation he may choose for a livelihood, he is by birthright a free man—a judge over the actions of the rulers of the land—an integral portion of the governing power. This is a precious inheritance, and involves mighty responsibilities. We shall not institute a comparison between the instruction obtained in schools and that derived from an acquaintance with the events and the interests of the day. Both are indispensable. We will say, however, that, while the father who starves the intellects of his children in order to leave them a few hundred dollars more wealth at his death, is justly regarded as the most mistaken of misers, we must also regard him who pays twenty dollars a year for the instruction of his children, yet grudges to expend half that sum in such periodicals as would excite their interest, enlarge their information, and elevate their tastes, as actuated by a most miserable and inconsistent parsimony.

6   We have labored to prove that it is the interest and duty, as it should be the pleasure, of every man who is able to work, or in any way to live without dependence on public charity, to take at least one public journal. What its character should be must depend much on his own taste; though if he should prefer a sheet surcharged with calumny, scurrility, and malignity,—the mere instrument of faction and the offspring of low ambition,—he will give us leave to wonder rather than admire. There are hundreds of newspapers printed in this country (and the case is still worse in England and elsewhere), which habitually violate all the decencies of life, and indulge in language and temper which cannot be thrown in the way of children without injury to their manners, their morals, and their principles. These errors and excesses, like the beacons which point out dangers to the mariner, will rather guide the course of the careful and well-disposed head of a family than discourage him altogether.

7   Great as is still the number of viciously conducted journals, their proportion to the deserving is far less than formerly, and the improvement is still in progress. We will only say, then, that he who can afford to take but one paper should take the very best one which his means will command, taking care that it embodies, as far as possible, that kind of information which is essential to the discharge of his own responsibilities.

8   But there is another, and we trust a much larger, class in this country who are able to minister to their intellectual wants more considerably and to do something for the encouragement and support of the public press. We say a larger class, for in this we include all who are not bankrupt, and who can procure a week’s physical subsistence for their families with the proceeds of five days’ labor. We believe that no man whose yearly income amounts to five hundred dollars, and who can live comfortably on four-fifths of it, can invest a quarter of the surplus so advantageously to himself and family, as in well-selected books and periodicals. For any man whose yearly income exceeds one thousand dollars a year, the appropriation of one-tenth of his annual income to purposes of education and of mental gratification and improvement would be little enough. That mind must be a paltry one, indeed, which is not worth one-tenth of the expense incurred in the sustenance and pampering of the body. And yet, how many there are who complain of the tax imposed by education and by “taking so many newspapers,” who do not expend for both so much as they have wasted in a single week’s amusement or dissipation! “I take so many newspapers that I have neither time to read them, nor money to pay for them,” is the language of many a man who spends in injurious indulgences and in idle company twice the time and money which would be required for reading and paying for the whole of them. Is this rational? Is it just to himself? Is it the example he would set before his children?

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