English press

“ The English know the power of the great modern newspaper, not only to reflect but to form public opinion. They have watched the American press because they know to what extent it influences American policy. ”

“ Newspapers give us the news of the day for the day. Yet in them we find the history of our own times, and we are constantly kept in mind of how important they are in our everyday life by such phrases as "the freedom of the Press," "the opinion of the Press," the Press meaning all the newspapers, journals and magazines and the people who write for them. ”

“ Many of their careers were brief and marked with pecuniary losses; yet out of the wreckage sprang some of the most important of the modern journals.
By 1703 Great Britain was ripe for a daily newspaper, and in that year one appeared under the name of “The Daily Courant.” The advent of this enterprise gave further impetus to newspaper publication. The English press of the eighteenth century rose into great popular favor. ”

“ Just as we chose the American daily paper for the model of a newsgathering and news-presenting organization, so here we must admit that, as an organ for expressing instructed opinion not only on politics but on general topics, the distinctively English type of paper is a far more potent and more highly-developed instrument. In this respect the American press suffers severely from the general democratic contempt prevailing on that continent for expert opinion of all kinds. ”

“ From henceforward we begin to deal not with journalists, even if they were editors, but with influential papers established as impregnable properties, independent of government, of their own brilliant literary staff and sometimes, though rarely, of public opinion. This change was brought about by a succession of three able and tenacious men in one family and raised by the long service and controlling genius of a fourth to a degree, which has made it for ever the model of English journalism and to some extent of the press of the world. ”

“ The real inference is, I take it, that the demand which was springing up attracted a great many impecunious persons, who became the drudges of the rising class of booksellers. No doubt the journalist was often in a degrading position. The press was active in all political struggles. ”

“ Delightful country, where one sees everything in the papers—the big, familiar, vulgar, good-natured, delightful papers, none of which has any reputation to keep up for anything but getting the news! I really think that has had as much to do as anything else with my satisfaction at getting home—the difference in what they call the "tone of the press." In Europe it's too dreary—the sapience, the solemnity, the false respectability, the verbosity, the long disquisitions on superannuated subjects. ”

“ The modern newspaper is a product of city life; it is no longer merely an organ of propaganda and opinion, but a form of popular literature. The journal of opinion was largely a business man's newspaper. The so-called independent press added to its public the so-called artisan class. The yellow press was created mainly to capture immigrants, and women.
It was this increase of circulation that made the newspaper—formerly a subsidized organ of the parties an independent business enterprise, an envelope and carrier for advertising. ”

“ The influence of a newspaper in England is enormous, incalculable, and even in India where there is sometimes an affectation of poohpoohing the Press it is very great. Question it who will, the Press is a great power for good— it is also unfortunately a great power for evil. It can expose and insist upon the remedy of wrong —it can also do wrong. Reflect on this fact—that your first essential is to interest the public. No amount of industry or cleverness can avail without this. ”

“ And coming from one who, as you know, never had any thing to do with newspapers, except as having been an eager and regular reader of them for more than twenty years, I hope my testimony is worth having, when I express my opinion that our newspaper press is a very great honour to Great Britain, as well negatively in its abstinence from myriads of tempting but objectionable topics, as well as positively in the varied ability, the energy, accuracy, and amazing promptitude displayed in dealing with the ever-changing and often-perplexing affairs of the world. ”

“ The newspaper is the great educator of the nineteenth century. There is no force compared with it. It is book, pulpit, platform, forum, all in one. And there is not an interest—religious, literary, commercial, scientific, agricultural, or mechanical—that is not within its grasp. All our churches, and schools, and colleges, and asylums, and art-galleries feel the quaking of the printing-press. ”

“ Time was when the average British newspaper represented a high standard of accuracy, fairness and literary ability, but since the importation of many doubtful American methods, the character of the press has to a large measure degenerated. Moreover, few British newspapers are independent of political or corporation control, although exceptions exist, and impartial reports of and comments upon news are rare. ”

“ Taking the press not only as the great news-distributor of the world, but also as almost the most powerful existing mechanism for the moulding of opinion, I do not hesitate to declare that for the last half of the Victorian century the British press held a position demonstrably superior to the press of any other country. Although in many respects, and some of them important ones, of which I have already mentioned a few, we ought freely to acknowledge our inferiority, in the two most vitally important attributes of journalism I believe we have long been unrivalled. ”

“ Confined as we are to brief space our best course is to deal only with living papers, the selection of which is indeed a sufficient task and to note only such facts in their complicated lives as will be of service to us in determining the character of the British press as it is to-day. Of all that exists anterior to these it will be sufficient to notice only those parts of our subject, which have succeeded in creeping163 into the history of our politics or our literature. Of the foreign press no more than a brief contemporary review can be given. ”

“ They are most able men, a credit to the American Press. They are trustworthy. That is the opinion formed by the people who know in England. I am glad to be able to repeat this opinion here to-day. If the Press wants to unite countries it can. [48] If it wants to disunite them, it can. But the Press is just like a person in this. If someone tells you constantly of another’s shortcomings and faults and extols his own virtues, you begin sooner or later to avoid that person. ”

“ For several years the newspaper press had been rapidly growing in political importance, and the vehicle of mere general news became the channel of political and social enlightenment. In proportion to the development of its power and the creation of public opinion favorable to its views, was the increase of its boldness, and at the beginning of 1770 the American press was not only united in sentiment, but almost as fearless in the expression of political and religious opinions as the newspapers of the present day. ”

“ The purchasers of books, however, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were almost wholly confined to the class of nobles and those of the richer citizens and scholars by profession. It was a very long time before the influence of the press had produced any direct effect upon the habits of the great mass of the people. It was not till the system of periodical literature was fairly established, and that newspapers first, and magazines and reviews subsequently, had taken hold of the popular mind, that the productions of the press could be said to be in demand amongst the people generally. ”

“ The state of the public press in England, especially with regard to its Sunday publications, is grievous and lamentable enough to justify the assertion, that printing is a bane as well as a blessing to our native country. ”

“ But I am chiefly conscious to-night of the debt of gratitude we all owe to the press. The newspaper—say what you will of it—is the immediate recorder and interpreter of life. Morning and evening it offers us that perpetual stimulus which makes the zest of living. Be your interests what they may, though you abstract your mind from the tumult of affairs and devote it to art or science, you cannot open a news [Pg 683] paper without the sensation of laying your hand upon the throbbing pulse of the world. ”

“ The liberty of the press, and the great interest taken by all ranks of people in public affairs, have occasioned a more numerous circulation of periodical prints of every kind in England, than in any other country in Europe. ”

“ Fifty years ago, I, who am now here speaking to you, was hated, hooted, slandered, cursed. Today, to-day—but the date is enough. Gentlemen, the French press is one of the mistresses of the human intellect; it has its daily task, and that task is gigantic. ”

“ The most acute problem of this vexed time is the ever-growing power of the newspaper press. Legislation of a drastic kind is needed to cope with certain newspaper ‘bosses’ in Great Britain and America and their combinations, national and international, of periodicals, agencies, special correspondents and their sinister antennae, which persistently foul at the source the wells of truth. ”

“ The history of our newspapers is the strongest argument in favor of the establishment of a press. These papers abundantly prove, that we have all the talent and industry requisite to conduct a paper such as we need; and they prove also, that among 500,000 free people of color, no one man is yet set apart with a competence for the purpose of advocating with the pen our cause and the cause of our brethren in chains. ”

“ This is true not only of periodicals and weeklies but also of the great morning dailies, which are by far the most influential part of that institution,16 which we casually refer to as “the press.” Here is where power is presumed to reside. Whether it be politics or art or finance, everyone, who wants anything important done to influence the general public, feels that it is here that the first and most valiant effort must be made. The press must be got at and persuaded or bullied into taking what is the only possible point of view, as each individual sees it for himself. ”

“ So, young ladies, as I said in the beginning, from a literary standpoint, from a social standpoint, from a business standpoint, and from the standpoint of philanthropic and Christian usefulness, your future position and success in life depend upon the company you keep. Under the great principle of the freedom of the press, the newspaper has become a universal institution in America,—omnipresent, and almost omnipotent. ”

“ The general press prints what the public wants; the specific newspaper prints what its editor thinks the class of readers to which it caters wants. If he gauges his public right, he succeeds; if he does not, he fails. You can no more make the people read a newspaper they do not want than you can make a horse drink when he is not thirsty. In this respect the pulpit has the better of the press. ”

“ We have thus sketched the history of printing, and of the newspaper press in Boston and New York, from the introduction of the art, down to the period of the Revolution. From these brief sketches, an idea may be formed of the germ of the newspaper press which is now one of the chief glories of our country. The public press of no other country equals that of the United States, either on the score of its moral or its intellectual power, or for the exertion of that manly independence of thought and action, which ought to characterize the press of a free people. ”

“ The time when the opinions, the power in phraseology, or the individuality of one man could alone make a daily newspaper a financial, literary, or political success had passed. The press had become an institution, journalism a profession, and the publication of newspapers a practical business requiring and rewarding enterprise and sagacity. ”

“ Let us tell each other sad stories of the bestiality of the beast whom we feed. What he likes is the newspaper; and to me the press is the mouth of a sewer, where lying is professed as from an university chair, and everything prurient, and ignoble, and essentially dull, finds its abode and pulpit. ”

“ I need not elaborate upon the wonderful growth of the press in our country, or refer to the great power which journalism wields in the development of the new world. I need not ladle out statistics to show you how the newspaper has encroached upon the field of oratory and how the pale and silent man, while others sleep, compiles the universal history of a day and tells his mighty audience what he thinks about it before he goes to bed. ”

“ Come, buy this print, and it will then be seen
That such a year as this has seldom been.”
Another of these stainers of paper addressed the spectators in the following terms, “Friends, now is your time to support the freedom of the press. Can the press have greater liberty? here you find it working in the middle of the Thames; and if you encourage us by buying our impressions, we will keep it going in the true spirit of liberty during the frost.” ”

“ But, I may be tresspassing upon time which can be more profitably employed—or if not, I may already have arrogated to myself the utterance of suggestions more forcibly and appropriately made by more wise and venerable persons; I will therefore farther detain you only by offering the following sentiment.
The Press: A lever whose impressive power, if pulled by the united hands of the craft, will put a period to vice, and leave a fairer impression upon the face of our nation, and give the pages of as history in future, a brighter lustre than all other influences combined. ”