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AMERICAN
AND
ENGLISH STUDIES








AMERICAN
AND
ENGLISH STUDIES
BY


WHITELAW REID
VOLUME II
BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND
JOURNALISM
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO.
MDCCCCXI




COPYRIGHT, I913, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS, FOR THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PRINTED BY THE SCRIBNER PRESS
NEW YORK, U. S. A.




TABLE OF CONfENTS
VOLUME II
PAGE, ABRAHAM     LINCOLN                                       3
University of Birmingham. December 7, 1910
v THOMAS JEFFERSON                                        37
University College of Wales. October 31, 1912
e EDMUND BURKE                                            73
Unveiling of Tablet on Burke's House. Bath, October 22, 1908.THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND THE ULSTER SCOT                  87
Edinburgh Philosozphical Institution. November 1, 1911; TALLEYRAND                                             1 35
Introduction to " Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand." New
York, 1891
~ BYRON                                                  165
University College. Nottingham, November 29, 1910
AN EDITOR'S REFLECTIONS
I. JOURNALISM AS A CAREER                             193
University of the City of Jew York. A.fril 4, 1872
II. THE PRACTICAL ISSUES IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE 231
The Editorial Association of N'ew York. Rochester, June 17,
1879
III. RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS                       281
First Bromley Lecture. Yale University, February 25, 1901
IV. JOURNALISTIC DUTIES AND OPPORTUNITIES              313
Second Bromley Lecture. Yale University, February 28, 1901
27f0046








ABRAHAM LINCOLN








ABRAHAM LINCOLN


A        RECENT essay on Dr. Johnson began with
the remark, "We may talk about him,
and praise him, because we shall be the
better for so doing; but we shall certainly say nothing new about him." These words may be applied
to Abraham Lincoln with the utmost emphasis. Libraries have been written about him. His devoted
and accomplished secretaries prepared a monumental work, telling all the things proper that the
public should be told of him and of his great days
as seen from the White House. A kind of inferior
Boswell, but more communicative and even less
fastidious, appeared in the person of his own partner in his Illinois law office. Senators and Representatives in Congress vied with each other in biographies and eulogies. Every clerk that served him,
every politician that gained access to him, every
civilian soldier that owed him promotion or pardon, the very employees of the departments, the
captains of tens or hundreds in the remoter party
organizations, and, of course, the members of the
press, who in pursuitof their duty followed his footsteps and guessed at his purposes,-all felt bound
to record and generally to publish their facts and
their observations. The statesmen and the press of
all nations first laughed at him, then studied him,
analyzed him, weighed and estimated him; and at
the end the civilized world paid him homage. Certainly we are the better for talking about him and
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN
praising him; but as certainly we can say nothing
new about him. I shall try to avoid saying some of
the old things.
I had the honor of knowing Mr. Lincoln a little
before his nomination for the Presidency; in fact,
of having been among the first, if not the first, of
Republican editors outside of his state to propose his
nomination in preference to our own state candidate. The acquaintance thus formed neverof course
became intimate-I was only an unimportant boy;
but he was always kind to me, and I continued
to see him from time to time till I sat near his bier
in the White House, and afterward watched from
the roof of the Treasury the long procession pass
through Pennsylvania Avenue and up the Capitol
Hill-the ever renewed procession,that lasted for
a fortnight, that swept great cities into its ranks,
and crossed half the country, to lay him at last at
rest, amid the scenes of his youthful struggles and
triumphs.
Eulogy of him often seemed to me, at the time
of his death and long afterward, to run into uninformed apotheosis; and sentimentalists,with whom
I knew him to have no sympathy, seized upon him
after the manner of their kind, as their own particular hero, for their own particular purposes. Regarding him as a maker of history in the nineteenth
century, I place him far above Bismarck, who created an empire; far above Gambetta, who saved
a fallen people; or Mazzini, who helped put a new
soul in another; or the Marquis Ito, who transC 4 3




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
formed some hermit islanders into the present first
of Asiatic and peer of European powers. Far be it
from me to depreciate or even to estimate the net
amount of good which the crucible of time may
disclose in its last analysis of the life work of any
one of these famous historic figures. I only recognize the present obvious fact, when I put above any
or all of them the man who saved for liberty and
humanity the greatest Republic of modern times,
a continental Republic of now ninety millions of
souls,besides its teeming island dependencies in
both hemispheres; the man who crowned this patriotic duty by freeing three millions of slaves,
whom others and not we had enslaved.
I would like to strip his name and fame from the
incongruous and imaginary attributes under which
so many eulogists have disguised him. Let me say
at once,then,that this untaught offspring of the poor
whites of Kentucky was not at the outset and never
became that favorite type of some publicists, a retiring citizen, inattentive in general to other interests than those near him, entirely content with private life till roused by an unexpected call to public
duty. The Illinois swamps of those days developed
no such Cincinnatus amid their malaria. On thecontrary, though personally modest and sensitive, he
was from his earliest manhood a persistent officeseeker, and the most ambitious of men.
He was not in the least either a simple-minded
rustic, or a professional "reformer." On the contrary, he was an ardent partisan, and the most skilC 5 J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ful master of men, and of all the intricacies of the
game of politics, known in his state. He had small
regard for many of the refinements of the modern Civil Service reformer. He knew how to use
the post-offices to secure delegates, and he was
ready enough to point out to his Congressman how
a judicious use of other patronage would promote
the good cause at the next convention. When he
came to great place he still used patronage without
hesitation-to advance high public interests, to
gain support for the Union cause, to quiet discontent, to promote recruiting. Honesty he insisted on,
but beyond that his official standard was not always
the highest, and his judgment of individual character not always safe. Thus, in haste, he appointed
many incompetent officers in the army and elsewhere, and often tolerated inefficiency after others
had discovered it.
But he was not governed by personal likes and
dislikes, and least of all by any remembrance of
grievances. During his life at the bar no other lawyer had ever affronted and wounded him so deeply
as Edwin M. Stanton; and the professional conduct
was further embittered by unconcealed contempt
for his backwoods appearance. Yet, in a critical
moment and on the belief that Mr. Stanton could do
the work in which his first appointee had not been
successful, he did not hesitate to make this contemptuous and, as he thought, arrogant lawyer,
his Secretary of War. A highly trained general,
whom he had appointed and promoted, tortured
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN
him by unexpected delays in the field and by sending him political letters, kept him waiting long at
night in the general's ante-room -even once, it
was said, went to bed without seeing him at all.
He kept this man in high command, and persisted
in "giving him another trial," in spite of halting
obedience and frequent failure,long after the coulntry and the Cabinet called for change. The ablest
and most useful member of his Cabinet was used
as a rallying-point for the disaffection which sought
to prevent his renomination, and this member of
his official family finally resigned on a poor question of patronage. He seized the opportunity, a few
months later, to appoint that man Chief Justice of
the United States.
He was not " perpetually telling humorous and
sometimes risque stories in the White House;" he
had no such conception of the duties of a statesman
in exalted position and in a time of extreme peril.
On the contrary, he probably told fewer stories
during his whole stay in the White House than in
any previous year of his adult life; and for every
one he did tell a hundred poorer and coarser ones
were fathered on him. Nor did his stories call for
the unctuous and superfluous excuse that they afforded him a needed relief from the sadness of the
time. No doubt he was sad in the White House, but
hle had been sad all his life. The wit and humor
with which his stories overflowed were an essential part of his strange frontier nature, as essential
as his melancholy, his ready sympathies, orhis amC 7 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
bition. He had no dissipations, and no other amusements; instead of these he told stories from boyhood to admiring comrades; he told them uncommonly well, and in public they always illustrated
his argument and helped him carry his point. Nothing, for instance, could have made plainer his view
about the unfitness of the Free Soilers to assume
the place of a great national party, and, with their
one idea, undertake the complex duties of carrying
on the government of the country, than his story at
Worcester, Massachusetts, as early as 1848, about
the Yankee pedlar who had but one pair of trousers in his stock, and commended it to every customer as " large enough to fit any man-and small
enough to fit any boy."
He was always the life of every country tavern where he stayed, and his stories on the circuit
were as eagerly awaited by the bench and bar as
the regular sessions of the court. Yet at the most
critical periods of his life this incessant story-teller
was the victim of such melancholia that his friends
feared for his reason; always, when not in animated conversation, he was the most melancholy
looking of men. In the White House, and under
the anxieties of the Civil War, he was naturally
still more gloomy. To regard this highest and saddest statesman of the century as a mere professional wearer of the cap and bells-to take this
sacred name as a convenient decoration for some
popular humorist, or for a "joke-smith by trade,"
to eulogize some such one as "the Abraham LinE 8 j




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
coin of American literature"-that is the last indignity from the sentimental school which he distrusted in life, and which thus belittles his bloodearned laurels.
He was not in the early days and, in fact, he
never became a great lawyer-hardly even a thorough one. He did become slowly-he did everything slowly-an unsurpassed jury lawyer, with
what some of his professional rivals considered the
drawback of being also an honest one. He could
not succeed unless he thoroughly believed in his
case-and he rarely tried.
He was an intensely religious man, and knew
the Bible better than any other book; his own conduct was governed by an exalted ethical code,- as
exalted as that of Marcus Aurelius,-but he was
never a member of any church, and if the opinions
of two of his partners, of his wife, and of some
other intimates can be accepted, he could not be
accurately described as a convinced Christian.
He was the great emancipator, but in politics he
was never an Abolitionist-in fact, he distrusted
and opposed them and their party. At the beginning of his public career he did not even particularly concern himself with slavery, although he
always thought ill of it. He devoted himself to local
issues, and he rose first to the favor of his constituents by arguing the navigability of the Sangamon River, and by leading the successful effort
for the removal of the state capital from Vandalia
to Springfield, near its banks. When slavery was
C 9 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
forced by its friends into state and national politics,
he, like most of those around him, disliked but
recognized the authorityof the Fugitive Slave Law.
The Boston Abolitionists had that justification, if
no other, for their amiable description of him as the
Illinois slave-hound. His crowning glory in later
years was the fact that, instead of demanding that
the law should be defied, or else that the Southern
States be encouraged to go off and set up a slave
republic for themselves; instead of meanwhile
denouncing the Constitution of the United States
as a covenant with Death and an agreement with
Hell,-these, I believe, were the restrained expressions of Mr. William Lloyd Garrison,-he became
the leader of those antislavery men who knew
how to use, and to persuade the people to use,
the forces of a constitutional government, through
the political agencies it had created, to promote by
peaceful and legal means the greatest cause that
could possibly arise under it-in a word, to meet
the aggressions of slavery with the political and constitutional triumph of a national antislavery party.
I have mentioned some of the distortions with
which unwise eulogists and self-seeking extremists
have overlaid the fame of Lincoln. Let me add that
there is but one key-save events —to the character of this strange,uncouth, self-educated, gifted,
and ambitious son of the commonest of the common people. His nature from childhood was one of
absolute truthfulness, with himself as well as with
others; of absolute honesty, with himself and with
C 10 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
others; and of an absolute courage that would face
the stake if need be for his convictions of duty. Join
to these cardinal traits unconquerable good nature,
constant goodwill, instinctive sympathy with and
understanding of "the plain people," persuasive
skill in awaking and patience in awaiting their perceptions of the right, and the most utter democracy
of feeling and manners, and you have the qualities that brought him to the front in a pioneer community-that gave him the entire confidence of
all classes-that, aided by great talents and tremendous pertinacity, made him the leader of his
party at his home, presently in his state, and then
in his country-that always insured him a devoted
following, that led him to enormous power, to the
highest achievements, and to a martyr's crown.
He was the child of poor pioneers in a rough settlement of emigrants and adventurers in southwestern Kentucky. They had been cradled amid
Indian atrocities. The grandfather was shot dead
in sight of his home, and as the savage rushed
out from the sheltering woods upon the six-yearold boy, Thomas Lincoln, who was clinging to the
corpse, an older brother saved this future father
of the emancipator by a rifle-shot from the cabin.
When he grew up, this orphan flotsam rescued
from the wreck made by the Indian scalping-knife
could not read or write, though his wife afterward
taught him to trace his name and to spell his way
painfully a little in the New Testament. Their
E 11 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
immortal son was born in a log cabin, fourteen feet
square; and when, seven years later, the roving
parents removed to a remoter wilderness and
cheaper land in southern Indiana, they lived first
in a" half-faced camp," that is to say, in a log cabin
of which the side to the south was left out, while, of
coursethe lop-sided structure had neither windows
nor doors nor floor. The lad had altogether, but
in widely separated fragments, considerably less
than one year's attendance at school, and the last
of this came when he was sixteen years old. The
books slowly gathered in his father's cabin were
the Bible, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, IEsop's
Fables, Weems's Life of Washington, a small
History of the United States, and Robinson Crusoe. Out of these he began digging his education
for himself, lying on the floor and reading at night
by the light of the blazing logs in the fireplace.
From these books and this painful study he developed the extraordinary English style, sometimes
quaint but always lucid, convincing, and well-nigh
perfect, which marks most of his public productions, and rises to such world-classics as the speech
at Gettysburg, the letter to the mother of five sons
lost in battle, or the close of the second inaugural.
I shall cite two of these to make good my bold
claim that this untaught young pioneer evolved
from his intimate knowledge of the few books I
have named a well-nigh perfect English style. It
was during the dark days of the war that he wrote
this letter of sympathy to a bereaved mother:
C 12 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
"I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement that you are the mother of five sons
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel
how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine
which should attempt to beguile you from your grief for
a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation which may be found in the
thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our
Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of
the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be
yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of
Freedom. "
What classic author, in our common English
tongue, has surpassed that? And next, may I ask,
what English or American orator has, on a similar occasion, surpassed this address on the battlefield of Gettysburg?
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger
sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we
cannot hallow- this ground. The brave men, living and
dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little
note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can
1 13 7




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
never forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us -that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last full measure of devotion -that we here highly
resolve that these dead should not have died in vainthat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom-and that government of the people, by the
people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
The pioneer lad, lying on the floor and reading
his mother's books by the light of the log fire,
learned something more besides a wonderful English style. He toiled a little, unaided, over English
grammar, and sometimes he tried to master the
mysteries of multiplication and division by ciphering with a bit of charcoal on the back of the
wooden fire-shovel. When this was covered with
figures he would shave them off with his father's
"draw-shave," and begin again. He grew fast, was
unusually strong, and was supposed to work on his
father's place. But he snatched eagerly at every
chance to listen to the political talk of the elders,
to attend the trial of a lawsuit, or to read a borrowed Louisville newspaper; and presently this
barefoot, tow-clad boy of fifteen or sixteen was
mounting a stump in his father's clearing and giving the others a chance to stop work in order to
listen to him trying to make a speech! His mother
died when he was only nine years old; but a stepC 14 j




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
mother came a year later, who encouraged his
efforts, and secured him his last fitful attendance
at school.
When nineteen hehad grown into a young giant
of six feet four. He was always a dutiful and affectionate son,but he was now weary of home routine,
and filled with the youthful and frontier lust for
wandering. Still he was easily convinced that it was
his duty to continue helping the family; and this
was made easier by the chance given for service
as a flatboat bow-hand, on a trip to New Orleans,
at eight dollars a month. He next assisted in another family removal, this time to still newer land,
in Illinois. He drove the ox-team through the almost bottomless roads, for a fortnight; helped put
up the log cabin, ploughed fifteen acres of prairie
sod, and split rails enough to fence it. At last, when
he attained his majority, he took odd jobs from others, supported himself, and in his frequent leisure
kept up the stump-speaking habit in the clearings,
sometimes with an audience of farm hands, sometimes only to the surrounding stumps or the cattle. Then came another trip down the Mississippi
in a flatboat which he helped to build; and incidentally a visit to a slave auction in New Orleans,
which led the embryo politician to exclaim to his
companions: " Boys, let's get away from this. If I
ever get a chance to hit this thing, I'll hit it hard."
Much happened first, but the chance came, and the
former flatboatman was as good as his word.
At the outbreak of the Black Hawk War (a defiC 15 J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ant return to the state by savages who had agreed
to go beyond its borders), the young fellow enlisted, was immediately chosen captain by the
company raised in the neighborhood, and served
till the end. The most serious exploits remembered in his military service were his indignant
rescue of a half-starved, unwarlike Indian whom
the soldiers were about to kill; and his refusal to
betray to deserved discipline some of his own men
who, without his knowledge, had broken into the
officers' stores and got drunk on them. The consequent sentence on Captain Lincoln required him
to wear a wooden sword for three days in punishment,-a sentence to which he submitted with
perfect simplicity and composure.
With this episode the record of the pioneer lad,
the rail-splitter, flatboatman, and volunteer militiaman, now twenty-two years old, is closed. He
next takes more vigorously than ever to attending
the local courts and making stump speeches; widens his reputation as an inveterate story-teller;
resolves to be a lawyer and borrows law-books;
announces himself as a candidate for the legislature, and meantime tries to keep a country store for
a living. He was defeated for the legislature, but
had the almost solid vote of his own neighborhood;
and he broke up as a merchant, but readily gave
his notes for his debts, began paying them off from
his first earnings as a lawyer, and finished the process, years afterward, out of his congressional salary. Meantime he worked away by himself over
C 16 j




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
his law-books, took any odd job that offered for
his board, profited by the prominence his canvass
for the legislature had given him to get appointed
postmaster, and studied land-surveying in borrowed books, in order to be made assistant surveyor. Next year he tried again for the legislature,
and was elected.
When he thus entered upon a public career he
was twenty-five years of age. Eight successive
elections to the legislature, one term in Congress,
an unsuccessful effort to get appointed land commissioner, an increasing law practice that placed
him among the foremost lawyers of the state,
several canvasses as the nominee of his party for
Presidential elector, then the unsuccessful contest
with Stephen A. Douglas for the United States
Senate -that gives, in brief, the several steps in this
public career up to his election by the new antislavery party as President of the United States.
While a private citizen, an outstanding feature
of his character was the ingenuous recklessness
with which he ran into debt, coupled with the
scrupulous, in fact, relentless honesty with which
he paid his debts. The first conspicuous feature in
his public service, in the legislature, was an equal
readiness to plunge the state into extravagant
expenditures for internal improvements, and the
same rigid view afterward as to the duty of payment, coupled with a becoming modestyever afterward about his own skill in finance. The next,
E 17 J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
and far the most important feature in his eight
years' work in the Illinois state capitol, was his
invincible determination, in spite of all the adverse
personal and political influences by which he was
surrounded, to place himself on record against resolutions, overwhelmingly passed by the legislature, which disapproved of abolition societies, and
declared the right of property in slaves held in the
slave-holding states to be sacred. Lincoln's protest,
as entered upon the legislative minutes for March
3, 18 37, readily admitted that "the promulgation
of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than
abate the evils of slavery;" but it insisted on declaring slavery itself, though just pronounced sacred
by the legislature, to be founded on both injustice
and bad policy. For an ordinary politician, this in
the Illinois of that day might have been suicide.
For him, it was merely notice to all concerned of
the line on which he was fully determined to argue
the question out. Meantime he went placidly about
his business, was forgiven his eccentric declaration of principle, and retained in the confidence of
the Whigs till he lost any chances he might have
had for reelection to Congress by equal obstinacy
in his opinions concerning the unjust origin of the
Mexican War.
During all this period he was encountering the
brilliant and popular leader of the Illinois Democracy, Stephen A. Douglas. Sometimes they were
rivals in popular elections, constantly in the courts
or on the stump. At last the growing pretensions
C i8 J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
of the slave power pitted them against each other
on a stage which attracted the eyes of the whole
nation. The South claimed the right to take slaves
with them into the newly organized territories of
Kansas and Nebraska. Mr. Douglas undertook to
conciliate northern dislike of this demand by proposing to leave it to a vote of the people in each
territory whether they should have slavery or
not. Mr. Lincoln refused to be a party to this device for conniving at the possible extension to soil
hitherto free of a system which twenty-one years
before he had declared, in his defiant protest, to be
"founded on both injustice and bad policy."
Mr. Douglas was now a member of the United
States Senate, and a candidate for reelection; and
already the many mouths of rumor were proclaiming him the next Democratic candidate for the
Presidency. Mr. Lincoln's party friends selected
him as the strongest man in the state to oppose Mr.
Douglas for the Senate, and challenged a joint discussion of the political issues by the rivals, before
popular audiences in all parts of the state. From
the day that discussion began, practically all that
was left of Mr. Lincoln's life, in peace or in war,
lay in this antislavery struggle.
The institution that was thus about to take him
up and push him forward to power and deathless
fame, and was about also to engross all the energies of the whole country, was not introduced to
America by its independent people, or even by the
British colonists. It had existed on American soil
C 19 I




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
among the Spanish and Portuguese a hundred years
before the foot of a slave touched any part of what
is now the United States. It had existed fifty years
in the British West Indies before Dutch vessels
brought the first cargoes of slaves to the British
colony of tobacco planters in Virginia. Washington, Jefferson, and all the fathers of the Republic
were opposed to it; long after independence, only
Georgia and South Carolina insisted on its qualified recognition in the Constitution.Not till the
invention of the cotton-gin (in 1795) gradually
made the slave-grown cotton enormously profitable did most of the Southern States stifle their
dislike to it. Yet as late as at the date of the Declaration of Independence, a hundred and ninetytwo slave ships were still sailing from Liverpool,
London, Bristol, and Lancaster, and their united
cargo was said to be forty-seven thousand negroes!
Not till 1808, a quarter of a century after the
acknowledgment of American independence, did
Great Britain attempt to stop this traffic; and not
till 1838 did she abolish slavery in her own colonies-just one year after this rail-splitter and flatboatman had staked his early political existence
on recording in the Illinois legislative minutes his
denunciation of the injustice of slavery, as against
the declaration of most of his colleagues that in the
Southern States it was sacred. He lived to make
an end of it in his country, only twenty-five years
after Great Britain, only fifteen years after France,
and in the same year with Holland.
C 20 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Hardly any discussion before popular audiences
in America had ever commanded such wide attention as the Lincoln-Douglas debate, in their
canvass for the senatorship. It was the first to be
reported at such length, verbatim, in the newspapers. As Horace Greeley afterward exultingly
declared, it was the first which was subsequently
adopted in full as a campaign document by the
defeated side. The Republican leaders seized on
it for this purpose, giving Mr. Douglas's speeches
as fully and fairly as they did Mr. Lincoln's. It
was eagerly read in this form all over the North
long after Mr. Lincoln had lost the senatorship,
and throughout the greater Presidential contest
that followed.
With the inflexible determination which always
marked him when his own mind was clearly made
up, and forced him at such times inexorably to
reject the advice of even his most trusted friends,
Mr. Lincoln twice in that canvass invited his own
defeat. In his speech to the state convention,which
nominated him for the Senate, he startled the state
and the nation with these opening sentences:
"If we could first know where we are and whither we
are tending, we could better judge what to do and how
to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object and confident
promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under
the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only
not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion
it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and
E21 3




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'
I believe this government cannot endure permanently,
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved- I do not expect the house to fall- but I do
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will
arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of
ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward
till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as
well as new, North as well as South."
This momentous declaration had been carefully
considered, written out, and read to a dozen or
more of his most trusted friends. Not one approved
of it for the opening of a popular campaign; one,
in the blunt fashion of the place and time, burst
out with the declaration that it was a "d-d fool
utterance." His life-long and intimate friend, Leonard Swett, wrote him that the first ten lines of his
speech defeated him. Another anxious and frightened politician followed him to his office to remonstrate, but got this reply: "If I could save but one
thing from the record of my whole life, I would
choose that speech and save it from the wreck."
Only a few weeks later he amiably, but as obstinately, defied his friends again. Mr. Douglas had
just put some questions to him in the first joint
debate. Mr. Lincoln replied to them in the second, and in turn put certain questions to Mr. Douglas. These were likewise carefully written out and
shown beforehand to his friends. One of them deC 22 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
manded that Douglas should say whether, under
his Squatter Sovereignty doctrine, a territorial legislature could exclude slavery, in spite of the recent Dred Scott decision. His friends begged him
not to ask this question, warned him that Douglas
would surely seize the opportunity to answer Yes,
and that this would satisfy the opposing antislavery sentiment of the state and elect him. "If you
ask that question," said his friends almost unanimously, "you can never be Senator." "Perhaps
so," he replied, "but I am after larger game. If
Douglas does answer Yes, in the face of present
southern demands, he can never be President; and
that battle is worth a hundred of this."
His political sagacity was as thoroughly vindicated as his obstinate courage. He did put his question, and did draw out the answer he expected.
That answer did elect Douglas to the Senate, but
it lost him the friendship of the South. Judah P.
Benjamin, of Louisiana, told the consequences in
open Senate, as early as May, 1860, before the
Presidential campaign was fairly begun.
"The Senator's [Mr. Douglas's] adversary stood upon
principle and was beaten; and lo! he is the candidate of
a mighty party for the Presidency of the United States.
The Senator from Illinois faltered. He got the prize for
which he faltered; but lo! the grand prize of his ambition
slips to-day from his grasp because of his faltering in
his former contest; and his success in the canvass for the
Senate, purchased for an ignoble price, has cost him the
Presidency of the United States."
E:23 2




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Lincoln's courageous honesty and his splendid intellectual display in the joint debate thus gave him
the Republican national nomination; but the fateful campaign that followed brought a result which
Mr. Benjamin probably did not anticipate. It made
him President. His unflinching adherence to his
convictions had driven or tempted Douglas into a
position where he failed for lack of southern support; and the South into a position where it failed
for lack of northern support; and thus both were
presently confronted by a successful antislavery
party, in constitutional control of the national government. The South could not take another step
for the spread of slavery in the Union. Next, it attempted to break the Union up. To defeat that attempt was the sworn duty of the President, and it
now became Mr. Lincoln's life-long, all-absorbing
aim. He had followed legal and constitutional methods till his opponents abandoned them, and made
war upon the national government. Thenceforward he sought to advance on the plain path before
him only as far and as fast as he could carry the
people with him. This was his distinction -to know
the mind of the people, to command their confidence, to persuade them of their high duty, to lead
them always,but to lead only as fast as they would
follow.
Antislavery man as he had always been by conviction, and antislavery President as he was now
by election, he realized that his only actual manC 24 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
date from the people was to resist the efforts of
slaveholders to extend that institution over free
soil within the Union. But he was not kept long
in a waiting attitude. The South hastened to take
the initiative. A plot to assassinate him before he
could enter Washington to be inaugurated was
detected and thwarted. The Cotton States were
already setting up their Secession Confederacy,
and the whole South was aflame and defiant. Nevertheless, his inaugural address was one patient effort to soothe and persuade. He made it perfectly
plain that they had not the excuse of any attack
from him,present or intended, upon slavery where
it already existed, under constitutional sanction,
and he closed with this touching appeal:
" In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and
not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The
Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have
no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government,
while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve,
protect, and defend it.'
" I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends.
We must not be enemies. Though passion may have
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus
of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will
be, by the better angels of our nature. "
The answer to this appeal was the prompt investC 25   J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ment of Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston.
The mere attempt to supply it with provisions was
made the excuse for bombarding and reducing
it. "We must sprinkle blood in the faces of the
people," said a venerable South Carolinian, impatient at a momentary hesitation before actual firing
on the flag of the Union. After that there was no
southern hesitation.
With nearly one-third of the Union thus revolted or revolting, Mr. Lincoln found himself dependent on an army precisely 17,113 strong, officers and men, scattered over the continent, along
the Atlantic coast, in the West, in Texas, New
Mexico, Utah, and on the Pacific slope! The day
after Sumter surrendered, he called on the states
not in revolt for seventy-five thousand volunteers;
after the early disasters, Bull Run and the like, he
called, at different times, with the sanction of Congress, for a million; twice, later, he called for three
hundred thousand more; at the triumphant end he
had over a million men in the field under arms.
While the South was rushing into war, Mr.
Lincoln was besieged in the White House by the
office-seekers, till he was himself driven to a
quaint account of his situation. He said he was like
a man "living in a house and kept busy renting
lodgings at one end of it while he knew the other
end was on fire." Not till the 6th Massachusetts,
under orders for Washington, had to fight its way
through Baltimore, was this investing army of
office-seekers scattered. Then the new President
C 26 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
found himself isolated in the national capital for
nearly a week, with railway and telegraphic communication cut in every direction; while hundreds
of army officers and other employees of the government deserted their posts and fled South to take
up similar positions in the Confederacy; and the
air was even filled with threats of the capture of
Mr. Lincoln and the capital-till at last the 7th
New York was able by a circuitous route to come
to his relief.
At such a time new and graver perils broke
out in the most unexpected quarter. Mr. Lincoln's
Secretary of State, a statesman of long service and
great national distinction, was reputed his most
sagacious and trustworthy adviser. This gentleman had already offered revisions that would have
weakened the inaugural of the untried Illinoisan;
had proposed a policy of bravado and probable
war with European countries as a means of uniting the distracted nation at homeand had seriously
suggested to the new President that his Secretary should be left with practically exclusive power
over such momentous and needless additions to
the existing dangers. He now submitted a letter
of instructions for our Minister to Great Britain,
the deservedly distinguished Charles Francis Adams, which was to be laid textually before the
British Foreign Minister. This dealt with mere
rumors of Lord John Russell's being ready to see
southern commissioners unofficially. Mr. Adams
was in that case to break off any intercourse,
C 27 1




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
official or unofficial, with the British government.
If the South were recognized, Great Britain was
to be told that we had been enemies twice before
and must now become so again; while if Great
Britain accorded belligerent rights to Confederate privateers, there was an adequate remedy,
and we should avail ourselves of it! And, finally,
the letter recognized that out of this attitude war
might come "with one, two, or even more European nations." This last was certainly correct.
From such a document, so submitted, war between
two countries at least might easily have arisen. Mr.
Lincoln, the prairie state politician, absolutely inexperienced in either executive or diplomatic work,
and already environed in the flood of new and
startling difficulties, nevertheless without hesitation again overruled his accomplished Secretary
of State, modified with his own pen the belligerent instructions, and saved a dangerous if not fatal
misstep. Mr. Lincoln did this alone.
Once again he helped avert a similar calamity
for the United States and Great Britain, but this
time he had an advantage in following up the
previous work of an exalted personage, whose
memory is sacred in England and almost equally
revered in America. Let us recall the story of the
southern commissioners, taken by force from the
British packet "Trent." A high statesmanship, as
well as goodwill to America, was shown by the
late Queen Victoria in the modification of Lord
John Russell's dispatch on that subject. On the
C 28 ]




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
day Mr. Lincoln received news of the seizure of
Messrs. Mason and Slidell, he said: "I fear the
traitors will prove to be white elephants. We must
stick to American principles concerning the rights
of neutrals. We fought Great Britain for insisting, by theory and practice, on the right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done. If Great
Britain should now protest, we must give them up
and apologize for the act as a violation of our doctrines." At the moment Mr. Lincoln said that, his
Cabinet was sharing the general satisfaction of the
country at the seizure. But these excited, though
old and experienced advisers, finally accepted
his view. After the protracted Cabinet discussions, Mr. Seward wrote an admirable reply to
the letter Queen Victoria had modified, and concluded it with the statement that "the four persons in question will be cheerfully liberated." Two
great heads of state, from their independent positions, and without knowledge by either of what
the other would do, unconsciously cooperating in
a crisis of the utmost gravity, had kept the peace
between the two branches of the English-speaking
race.
The war into which the South drove Mr. Lincoln
in their effort to break up the Union was at first
sustained by the northern people at large only as
a war to maintain the Union; they could not have
been united in its support for any wider purpose.
He would not therefore permit it to be diverted
C 29 3




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
from that character-would not let it appear as
a movement on his part to abolish or even to injure slavery where that institution had an admittedly legal existence under the Constitution. He
was even anxious to keep the Confiscation Act
against the escaping slaves of rebels from bearing
the appearance of a plan to turn the war into an
abolition channel. Not till he was sure that the conservative masses of the North realized the necessity was he willing to use this power, already put
in his hands, against slavery within its old limits. His extreme caution exasperated many of his
supporters; and after the disastrous campaigns
through which the war dragged its weary way in
the first and second years, Horace Greeley, his
old colleague in the only Congress in which either
of them ever served, impatiently addressed to him
in print "The Prayer of Twenty Millions," insisting that attempts to put down the rebellion and
yet uphold its inciting cause must be futile, and
demanding the enforcement of laws which fully
authorized him to free large classes of slaves. Mr.
Lincoln immediately replied, through the press, in
a letter to Mr. Greeley:
"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say,
I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save
the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the
Constitution.
"My paramount object is to save the Union, and not
either to save or destroy Slavery.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave,
E 30 J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
I would do it -if I could save it by freeing all the slaves,
I would do it-and if I could save it by freeing some
and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
"What I do about Slavery and the Colored Race,
I do because I believe it helps to save this Union; and
what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it
would help to save the Union.
" I have here stated my purpose according to my views
of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oftexpressed personal wish that all men everywhere could
be free."
This patience, moderation, and transparent candor
had exactly the effect he desired in consolidating
the wavering sentiment of the North into a conviction that the only way to save the Union was to destroy slavery. Of his right to do it, in time of war,
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy,
and under the war powers of the Constitution, he
never had the slightest doubt; what he waited and
watched for was evidence that the people were
coming up to his own feeling of the necessity.
Meantime, he replied to similar appeals in the same
spirit, skilfully stating every objection so as to
draw out the popular opinion. This kind of discussion with delegations to the White House went on
for a month. It was on the 22d of August he sent
Horace Greeley the statement just quoted. On the
22d of September the nation was electrified with
a proclamation offering gradual and compensated
emancipation to all Slave States not in rebellion
at the next meeting of Congress, and where this
C 31 3




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
offer should not be accepted, declaring all slaves
free forever, from the ist of January following.
Even yet he was in advance of the people. In
the autumn elections following this proclamation,
his opponents wrested from him the states of New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois, while many other states also showed
grave losses for his party. But he never wavered
and he had not misjudged the opportunity. He redoubled his efforts to sustain the army and navy,
enforced demands for more troops, even at the ultimate cost of draft riots in New York, banished
Vallandigham, the most audacious northern sympathizer with the war against the Union, conciliated as far as possible his supporters in every state,
bore up under repeated defeats in the field, tried
new commanders where old ones continued to fail,
and then waited with what patience he could on
generals who still did not fight or did not win
victories. Finally he pushed Grant and Sherman
forward against Vicksburg, and Meade with the
Army of the Potomac against Lee; and at last,
on the following Fourth of July, he heard in the
thunders answering each other across the Union
from Gettysburg to Vicksburg, that his daring and
noble proclamation was made good.
We all know the sequel. The Mississippi soon
flowed again unvexed to the sea. Sherman marched
through Georgia. Grant fought his way to the defences of Richmond. Republican discontent disappeared, and the War President was reelected. The
C 32 J




ABRAHAM LINCOLN
spirit in which the worn leader of his people accepted the new power they had conferred shines
through the tender words with which his second
inaugural was closed:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by
the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, 'The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. '
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the
nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne
the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all
which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations."
I have only to tell what this man was, and what
he did,-not to offer any eulogy upon him. If one
were needed, what nobler eulogy could be uttered
than the simple statement that after such a strain
and such trials, with final triumph plainly in sight,
he uttered those words and felt as he spoke.


C 33 1




I




THOMAS JEFFERSON








THOMAS JEFFERSON


T HOMAS JEFFERSON was the author of the
Declaration of Independence. Who will name
the achievement by any other man of his blood
which has more largely influenced the world for
good than that empire-shaking, continent-shaking document, that saved Great Britain from herself; that saved America for herself, and developed in place of the two and a half millions of
that day a nation of ninety-three millions on the
continent, while it protects and guides islands of
ten or twelve millions more in every zone and on
every sea; that shook down the most obstinate of
monarchies, turned it into a republic, with a regenerated people, now the most prosperous government France ever had, and the most stable and enduring it ever had since Louis XIV-not excepting
that of either Napoleon.
Yet these are merely some of the external results more or less distinctly traceable to the momentous statement he addressed to the civilized
world on the Fourth of July, 1776. I do not dwell
upon any of them or argue them. Still less do I
insist upon the English style, lucid, convincing,
and of a stately dignity (unsurpassed, I venture to
think, by any official paper in a thousand years of
Parliamentary history), in which he clothed one
of the most philosophic and unassailable and yet
most revolutionary accounts of the origin of government since Plato: "We hold these truths to
C I7 J




THOMAS JEFFERSON
be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happipiness; that to secure these rights governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed." There was the
inward and spiritual meaning of this whole gospel of our American Welshman-the Declaration
to which he brought the people of his country and
to which he drew the considerate judgment of all
others.
His real work was the diffusion of an unaccustomed idea of the origin of government and of the
scope of human rights,-rights held not as Englishmen or Americans or Frenchmen, but simply
as men. That is the origin of the spiritual unrest
which broke out in Europe at the close of the
eighteenth century, and now pervades all classes
everywhere,-an unrest not to be quieted until it
triumphs. But it never meant, and Jefferson never
meant, the madness which the agitators of the
present day find in it. It never meant withdrawing the mainspring of the world's progress-free
individual initiative. On the contrary, it meant the
widest extension of free individual initiative to
every human being capable of it, limited only by
respect for the equal rights of others. As Mr. Jefferson wrote to M. L'Hommande (Paris, 1787):
"The policy of the American government is to
leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor
aiding them in their pursuits." And to M. de Meuf 38 j




THOMAS JEFFERSON
nier, in 1795: " I am a warm zealot for the attainment and enjoyment by all mankind of as much
liberty as each may exercise, without injury to the
equal liberty of his fellow citizens.'
Neither does it seem to me in the least worth while
to revive the old controversies as to the originality
of the Declaration, or as to what thinkers first conceived its propositions. Whether mere platitude,
as some said, or wild speculation by an irresponsible theorist, as others said, or profound and philosophical consideration of the subjects of greatest
human concern, as in the end it came to be generally considered,the famous Declaration consisted
of principles first so stated, arranged, collated,
and phrased by practically the sole pen of Thomas
Jefferson.
Still, forty-seven years later, his fiery old colleague, John Adams, wrote to Pickering: "There
is not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in
Congress for two years before. The substance of
it is contained in the declaration of rights, and the
violation of those rights,in the journals ofCongress
in 1 774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a
pamphlet voted and printed by the town of Boston
before the first Congress met, composed by James
Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and
pruned and polished by Samuel Adams."'l Even
Lee of Virginia wrote that it was copied from
Locke's " Treatise on Government." Others traced
1 Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Henry S. Randall, vol. i, p. 186.
[ 39 1




THOMAS JEFFERSON
its inspiration to Rousseau's "Contrat Social," or
to Montesquieu's "Esprit des Lois;" and others,
with better reason, to Coke upon Littleton. A less
respectable suggestion was that it was imitated
from the Mecklenburg Declaration.
Now,Mr.Jefferson was chosen bythe Congress
a member, the member with the largest vote, on
the committee for its preparation. The other members of the committee were John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
He was chosen by this committee to prepare and
present the work. He did present it; the people of
his country did unite and act upon it; the world did
give it a startled and universal consideration. That
is the essential thing. There were four other men
of the highest note on this committee of Congress.
No one of them did it; no one claims to have done
it. Every change ever made in it from Mr.Jefferson's original draft is on record. No one of them
is vital; though, as John Adams himself said, it
might have been better if some passages had been
left as they were. Still, the document is in better
taste without some of them. Theyoung, self-trained
writer of thirty-three had not then wholly outgrown his sophomore style, and he never outgrew his habit of over-statement. But as it stands
it is essentially his, and as such it has taken its
place among the epoch-making state papers of the
world.
He might no doubt have remained silent under
the remark of his old friend and co-worker of MasC 40 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
sachusetts. But silence was rarely his gift-especially when his vanity was wounded. So he wrote:
"The observations that the Declaration contained
no new ideas,that it is a commonplace compilation,
its sentiments hackneyed in Congress two years
before, and its essence contained in Otis's pamphlet may all be true. Of that I am not to be the
judge. Otis's pamphlet I never saw, and whether
I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection I do not know. I knowonlythat I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did not
consider it as any part of my charge to invent new
ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which
had ever been expressed before. I will say for
Mr. Adams, however, that he supported the Declaration with zeal and ability,fighting fearlessly for
every word of it."' It must be admitted that Mr.
Jefferson does not appear badly in this little passage at arms. To-day, certainly no high-minded
American would have had the author of the Declaration answer otherwise, or would have had his
concluding paragraph, which welded indissolubly
together the thirteen colonies, changed from the
words in which he framed and signed it:
" We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States
of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing
to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of
our intentions, do in the name, and by authority of the
good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought
'Randall's Life, vol. i, p. 186.
C 41 j




THOMAS JEFFERSON
to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as
free and independent States, they have full power to levy
war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of
this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of
Divine Providence, we mutually pledge each other our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."
The young man who wrote the Declaration at the
age of thirty-three, without ever having been out
of his native colonies, or much even out of the one
in which he was born, after a subsequent career
crowded with conspicuous duties and honors, and
half a century later, looked back over his whole
life and selected the three things he had done by
which he wished to be remembered, and which he
wished recorded on his tombstone. Two were the
work of his youth, the statute for Religious Freedom in Virginia and the Declaration; the third was
the passion of his old age, the founding of the University of Virginia.
What a list of undisputed and extraordinary
achievements he thus ignored! Besides these three,
he was the author of" A Summary View of the
Rights of British America," subsequently adopted
by Edmund Burke and published broadcast in England, with the result that the name of Thomas Jefferson decorated the list of proscribed in the first: 42 f




THOMAS JEFFERSON
bill of attainder. This " Summary View9" was afterward considered even more cogent and comprehensive than the Declaration. Against a multitude
of difficuties, somewhat of his own making, he
secured the annexation of a territorial empire to
the nation his Declaration had created-the province of Louisiana, at the mouth of the Mississippi,
with a vast extent of territory on the west bank
of that river, stretching almost to the Canadian
frontier, and, as he believed at the time, on the east
almost to Florida. As a mere tyro in legislation he
secured, against overwhelming social pressure,
the abolition both of entail and of primogeniture
in his native colony. He served for a year on various diplomatic commissions in Europe, and for
four years as Minister to France, during the turbulence of the Revolution; consulted not only privately but officially with the revolutionists, and
went beyond diplomatic usage or propriety in manifesting his active sympathy with them; served
twice as governor of his native state, once as Secretary of State to George Washington, once as
Vice-President of the United States, and twice as
President. He made great contributions to the plant
life and to the agriculture of the new country, and
imported for the public benefit high-bred cattle
and other domestic animals. He issued the patent
for the cotton-gin,and was almost the first to grasp
the enormous possibilities which finally led to its
making cotton King-to the temporarymisfortune
of Lancashire, and the honor forever of her splenC 43 1




THOMAS JEFFERSON
did and self-denying workingmen. Although not
strong in finance, he gave shape in our system to
one really valuable financial contribution, the decimal system. He created and led the Democratic
party, which ruled the country, almost without
a break, for over half a century. He first taught
his countrymen their vast inheritance, its capabilities, and even its extent, from the northwestern
stretch revealed in the Louisiana Purchase to the
yet more important and imperial region revealed
by the Lewis and Clark expedition, which was absolutely his, in its conception, in its organization,
in the choice of the men to conduct it, and in its
support.
Yet it was a sure instinct that led the old man to
the briefer record on his tombstone. These three
things were all great historic acts, one of them unquestionably of the first magnitude; all absolutely
disinterested, enormously valuable, uplifting humanity and harming no one. Even his admirers
must admit that his political career was checkered;
his executive course many times open to criticism;
that his modes of expressing convictions were often
ill-considered and extravagant, and often amazingly inconsistent; and his acts as a politician frequently far below the standard of the philosophical
writer on government. Nevertheless, the achievements he thus ignored embody a marvellous career for the raw-boned, red-headed son of the Albemarle County farmer and land-surveyor,-or
for any man, in any age. Yet, great as they were,
1 44 1




THOMAS JEFFERSON
they were not needed for his tombstone record.
Every entry on that was of itself a sure title to the
gratitude of posterity; one of them certainly a sure
title to immortality.
But if the figure/I have been presenting has a
head of gold, just as clearly it will be seen to have
had feet of clayJThere is no tyranny like that of
a great idea. When once honestly entertained by
a capable and sincere man, it possesses him, it
obsesses him, and may lead or drive him anywhere.
Mr. Jefferson honestly believed in the inalienable
right of all men to life, liberty, and happiness, that
governments were instituted among men to secure
these, and that they derived their just powers only
from the present consent of the governed. he did
not see that governments were just as distinctly
instituted to preserve order and protect men in their
earnings, as well as their liberty, and that primarily every government must rest upon force/Carrying his own fascinating propositions to their limit,
he thought the form of government should provide that the people could always and at once have
their way, subject to no hindrances or delay for
consideration. Whoever thought that needed was
not to be trusted; he was no friend to the liberties
of the people. Consequently, Mr. Jefferson looked
coldly on the Constitution of the United States as
a system of concerted checks on the instant execution of the popular will, and believed the greatest
danger the country was in came from the persons
C 45 




THOMAS JEFFERSON
who made this Constitution. Most of them had
fought for independence. He never had; but he
did not hesitate to consider them now eager to
enslave the country they had risked their lives to
free.
In this suspicious mood it was easy to attach importance to trifles. That the first President should
go to meet Congress, on its assembling, and give
in person the communications concerning the state
of the Union which the Constitution required of
him, seemed to Mr. Jefferson a dangerous imitation of the King of England at the opening of Parliament-even though the alleged imitator was
George Washington. That the first officer of the
nation should not be always as accessible as a
mechanic to anybody who had or fancied he had
business with him was another aping of monarchical habits, and an evening reception at the White
House was a distinct effort to set up a court. He
knew nothing about national finance-any more
than about his own; and his distrust of Alexander
Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, led him into absurd revelations of archaic and
parochial notions on the subject. He thought we
were not bound to pay any debts incurred for the
public service by the generation before us, and
had no right to incur any debts for the benefit of
the next generation. Here is his own statement:
"We may consider each generation as a distinct
nation, with a right by the will of its majority to
bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding
C 46 J




THOMAS JEFFERSON
generation, more than the inhabitants of another
country. The period of a generation is determined
by the laws of mortality, varying a little in different climates, but offering a general average of
nineteen years. At nineteen years, then, from the
date of a contract the majority of the contractors
are dead and their contract with them."1 Later
on he advanced his estimate of a generation from
nineteen to thirty-four years, but extended his
ideas of the impossibility of any longer binding
obligation so as to include not merely debts, but
laws, and even the Constitution itself! " The Constitution and the laws of their predecessors are extinguished in their natural course with those that
gave them being. Every constitution, then, and
every law naturally expires at the end of thirtyfour years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of
force and not of right." Such was the deliberate
and carefully written opinion of the Father of the
Democratic party. The greatest city of the Atlantic
coast has been governed now almost continuously
by his followers for a century. In spite of these
Jeffersonian principles, they have created in that
time a debt constituting a first mortgage on all the
property in New York City for $815,000,000!
Possessed with such wild notions, he could not
mind his own business in the Cabinet, but was perpetually harassing Washington with attacks on the
financial policy of the Secretary of the Treasury
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Paul Leicester Ford, vol. x,
P. 389.
E 47 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
the same policy and the same Secretary of whom
Daniel Webster said, thirty-five years later: "He
smote the rock of national resources,and abundant
streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the
dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprang upon
its feet." Of the policy thus justly eulogized on its
results by the greatest American of the next generation, Mr. Jefferson finally brought himself to
write: "Hamilton's financial policy was grounded
in corruption and dishonesty. It had two objectsfirst, as a puzzle to exclude popular understanding
and inquiry; secondly, as a machine for the corruption of the legislature."' The lack of pure republican simplicity, as he conceived it, and the lack
of sympathy with these amazing dogmas of Jeffersonian finance brought him by the end of the third
Administration to the belief that, at any cost, these
monarchists in disguise, the supporters of George
Washington and John Adams, must be turned out
of the control of the government, to preserve " our
threatened liberties."
Thus the best of motives, the passion for liberty,
led to the first great division of parties; to the first
split in Washington's Cabinet, from which Jefferson resigned after three years' service; and to an
' Ford's edition of the Writings, Anas, vol. i, p. 160.
2 Partly owing to " incompatibility of temper," partly to a growing critical
attitude toward Washington himself which was considered by some of
Washington's friends positively disloyal, and partly to indiscreet and extravagant attacks like those later in the Mazzei letter. Nothing Mr. Jefferson ever wrote provoked so much censure at the time as this letter to
Phillip Mazzei, an Italian gentleman with whom he had some special intimacy. Some sentences from the offensive passage in this letter follow:
C 48 j




THOMAS JEFFERSON
embittered war upon his old colleague and friend,
John Adams, whose Presidential career he cut short
at the end of one term. On the one hand were the
men of the Constitution, who wished the people to
rule, but also wished them to pay their debts, and
carefully sought to guard against such sudden rash
action as had cost the life of previous republics. On
the other hand were the passionate devotees of liberty above everything, who believed that restraint
" The aspect of our politics has wonderfully changed since you left us.
In place of that noble love of liberty and republican government which
carried us triumphantly through the war, an Anglican monarchical and
aristocratical party has sprung up, whose avowed object is to draw over
us the substance, as they have already done the forms, of the British government. The main body of our citizens, however, remain true to their republican principles; the whole landed interest is republican, and so is a
great mass of talents. Against us are the executive, the judiciary, two out
of three branches of the legislature, all the officers of the government who
want to be officers, all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the
boisterous sea of liberty; British merchants and Americans trading on British capital, speculators and holders in the banks and public funds, a contrivance invented for the purpose of corruption, and for assimilating us in
all things to the rotten as well as the sound parts of the British model. It
would give you a fever were I to name to you the apostates who have gone
over to these heresies, men who were Samsons in the field and Solomons
in the council, but who have had their heads shorn by the harlot England."
It was widely said that as Mr. Jefferson had been in Washington's Cabinet, General Washington regarded these declarations concerning the Executive and the tendency of his Administration as discourteous and disloyal,
and called Jefferson strongly to task. Mr. Jefferson's earlier biographers
have taken the greatest pains to vindicate him against these reports. A
good example of the argumentative vindication may be found in The Life
of Thomas Jefferson, by George Tucker, Professor of Moral Philosophy
in the University of Virginia, vol. i, pp. 517-527. A sufficient answer to
all such special pleading may be found, in a note by the editor, in Ford's
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. vii, p. 77. " The criticism on Washington in this letter was far less severe than Jefferson was writing to others
in these years. Washington himself took the reference so wholly to himself that from the publication of this letter he ceased all correspondence
and intercourse with his former Secretary."
C 49 1




THOMAS JEFFERSON
or delay in the immediate execution of any popular
demand, however hasty and ill-considered, was
unrepublican and dangerous, and meant an effort
to restore the monarchy. Both were sincere; both
wanted the people to rule. But the one wanted
the people to have their way through the ordinary
processes and safeguards of a government they
themselves made, and absolutely controlled; the
other wanted them to have it at any hazard and
at once.
Of this last party Mr. Jefferson became inevitably the head- driven to it by the great idea of
liberty, of the origin of government, and of its sole
purpose, which possessed him. Hamilton, while he
lived, was as inevitably the leader of the other
party. He was a young man, with far less than
Mr. Jefferson's advantages, and (only excepting
the Declaration) with fully equal achievement. Of
these rival leaders the Welshman was born to a
landed estate, and a place among the ruling classes
in the greatest and most influential of the colonies.
His Huguenot-Scottish opponent was born to nothing, and made his own way in the world from boyhood. The Welshman early took his natural place
among the legislators of his colony; the HuguenotScot much earlier won for himself his natural place
as a leader in the stormy political agitations of the
years before the Declaration, in the great city of
the coast. When the war which the Declaration invited broke out, Mr. Hamilton flung himself impetuously into it, was a soldier at eighteen, a cap-: 50 J




THOMAS JEFFERSON
tain of artillery in active service in the New Jersey
campaign at nineteen,private secretary to the commander-in-chief at twenty, leader of his command
in the assault on Cornwallis's first redoubt atYorktown at twenty-four. Mr.Jefferson never entered
the army at all. At the same age at which the one
was swaying tumultuous popular meetings in New
York, in all the excitements preceding the outbreak of war, the other was placidly pursuing his
collegiate studies at William and Mary. At the
same age at which one was following Washington
in the New Jersey campaign,the otherwas a favorite student in the office of one of the best lawyers
of his state, and was just discovering that he could
not speak at all, that his only weapon was the pen.
This, it must be confessed, he used relentlessly,
incessantly, and with great temporary effect. For
his permanent reputation it would be better if
three-fourths of what he wrote had never been
preserved. At thirty-eight the one had completed a
wonderful career in camps, in constitution-making,
and in the Cabinet, and was retiring to enter upon
private life in the most exacting of the professions
and to conquer his place as a great lawyer, inferior
to no other in that nation of lawyers. At the age
of thirty-eight the other had behind him a wonderful record, too, as Burgess of Virginia, member
of the Colonial Convention and of the Continental
Congress, author of the Declaration of Independence, and twice Governor of Virginia. After barely
nine years in private life (all he ever had since
I61 I




THOMAS JEFFERSON
boyhood) Hamilton fell in an unprovoked duel
with a political opponent at the age of forty-seven.
At forty-seven Jefferson had left the governorship
of his native state in some discredit from his lack
of executive ability, had been twice a member of
the Congress at Annapolis, had spent five years in
diplomatic service abroad, four of them as Minister to France, and had been Secretary of State.
Before him there still lay service for one term as
Vice-President of the United States, for two terms
as President, and then after nearly forty years'
office-holding,there yet lay seventeen years spent
in retirement, and in incessant political exhortation. Still the record made by the one before he
was forty contrasts not unfavorably with the record
left by the other at eighty.
Mr. Jefferson was not a man of genius. We have
seen that he was not an orator, not a soldier, not
a good Executive, least of all a well-balanced
statesman. But he was a philosophic thinker, or
dreamer, and yet with a wonderfully practical gift
for reading the tendencies of the populace, and
for putting their wishes into persuasive and stately
language. Constantly he did this so as to command political success; once he did it so that its
consequences have encircled the globe and the
world will remember him forever. He was at once
a philosopher and a partisan. But his philosophy
was sometimes ill-balanced and ill-considered; his
partisanship was always adroit and carefully conE 52 3




THOMAS JEFFERSON
sidered, generally successful, and sometimes useful.
His other accomplishments were varied. It was
John Adams who described how he was welcomed
to the Continental Congress, "as he brought with
him a reputation for literature,science, and a happy
talent for composition." It was whispered about that
"in addition to Latin and Greek, he understood
French, Italian, and Spanish, was learning German,
and intended to learn Gaelic if he could get the
books from Scotland, in order to read Ossian ( whom
he considered the greatest of poets) in the original.
Besides he could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a case, break
a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin."2 The
last was indeed a favorite pursuit. He himself has
left it on record that for twelve years of his life
he played the violin for three hours every day.
I began with consideration of the large influence
in the world for good of some of Mr. Jefferson's
work. But I did not commend him as a uniformly
sound political thinker, or as an altogether admirable man. In fact, as a political opponent he was
at times ungenerous and underhanded. Even his
close friend, James Madison, was constrained to
apologize for his frequent extravagance and inconsistency. Madison wrote: "Allowance ought to be
made for a habit in Mr. Jefferson, as in all others
of great genius, of expressing in strong and round
Randall's Life, p. 113.
The True Thomas Jefferson, by William Eleroy Curtis, pp. 129, 130.
E 53 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
terms impressions of the moment." A few examples may show the urgent need of this allowance,
and at the same time bring his real character and
its limitations into clearer relief. They will also
show the absurd extravagance to which he habitually resorted, as the surest means of impressing
the less intelligent voters.
He regarded Blackstone's "Commentaries"
and Hume's "History of England" as pernicious.
"They have made Tories," he said, "of all England,and are makingTories of those young Americans whose native feelings of independence do not
place them above the wily sophistries of a Hume
or a Blackstone. These two books have done more
toward the suppression of the liberties of man than
all the million of men in arms of Bonaparte, and
the millions of human lives with the sacrifice of
which he will stand loaded before the judgment
seat of his Maker."2 A modern sensational newspaper writer could hardly have put it stronger.
Under the sting of newspaper attack this extreme advocate of popular rights proposed the
appointment of government censors for the Press,
and wrote to Washington:" No government ought
to be without censors. Where the Press is free no
one ever will be." To Mr. Maury he described the
Press as "that first of all human contrivances for
generating war."3 Still to John Adams he wrote:
Randall's Life, vol. i, p. 188.
2 Life of Thomas Jefferson, by James Parton, p. 713.
'Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, edited by John P. Foley, p. 638, par. 5957.
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THOMAS JEFFERSON
"Thelight Cfrom printing] has dawned on the middling classes only of the men in Europe.The kings
and the rabble, of equal ignorance, have not yet
received its rays; but while printing is preserved,
it can no more recede than the sun return on its
course."' Yet again, on February 4, 18i6, he
wrote to James Monroe, thanking him for private
letters, and saying: "From forty years' experience
of the wretched guesswork of the newspapers of
what is not done in open daylight, and of their
falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth
reading and almost never worth notice."2 Here
at least was a politician with a courage of his convictions quite rare among his class at the present
day!
No man made more phrases about the absolute right of every man to govern himself; but in
the constitution which he wrote for Virginia he
required a landed property qualification for voters,
a quarter of an acre in towns, or twenty-five acres
in the country. He praised a constitution of Spain,
"which after a certain epoch disfranchises every
citizen who cannot read and write." 3 To a Frenchman, the Abbe Arnond,he wrote: "The people are
not qualified to legislate. With us therefore they
only choosethe legislators."' To Lafayette he wrote:
"A full measure of liberty is not now perhaps to
be expectedby your nation,nor am I confident they
Ford's edition of the Writings, vol. x, p. 270.
Ibid., p. 18.  5 Curtis, p. 292.
'Foley's Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, p. 492, par. 4599.
C 55 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
are prepared to preserve it. More than a generation
will be requisite, under the application of reasonable laws, favoring the progress of knowledge in
the great mass of the people, and their habituation
to an independent security of person and property,
before they will be capable of estimating the value
of freedom and the necessity of a sacred adherence
to the principles on which it rests for preservation.
Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth
in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere
force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared
people a tyranny still, of the many, the few, or the
one."l And in curious contrast with his political descendants, who now wish to have the decisions of
the highest courts reviewed or even reversed at
popular elections,he said bluntly: " The people are
not qualified to judge questions of law."2 To M.
Coray he wrote: " Modern times have discovered
the only device by which the people's rights can
be secured, to wit: Government by the people, acting not in person, but by representatives chosen by
themselves —that is to say, by every man of ripe
years and sane mind, who either contributes by
his purse or his person to the support of his country."3 He reconciled his personal feeling with holding office almost continuously for forty years; but
when he became President he was vehemently in
favor of rotation in office, and was the author of the
doctrine that "to the victors belong the spoils."
Foley's Jeffer8onian Cyclopedia, p. 501, par. 4701.
2 bid., p. 451, par. 4205.  3 Ibid., p. 388, par. 3530.
E 56 D




THOMAS JEFFERSON
He exhorted Albert Gallatin to " put down the
banks; andif thiscountrycannot be carried through
the longest war against the most powerful enemy
without ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous classes of her citizens, without bearing hard on the resources of the
people, or loading the public with an infamous burden of debt, I know nothing of my countrymen." 1
"In perfect and universal free trade" he discovered another of " the natural rights of men. I am
for free commerce with all nations, political connections with none, and little or no diplomatic
establishment." And yet he wished to confine the
great general government solely to foreign affairs
-to be thus conducted without diplomatic establishment! Every other subject of public concern,
excepting solely foreign affairs, he wished left to
the independent states.Nine-tenths of the present
useful activities of the general government would
thus have been destroyed at one stroke. He was
opposed to building up manufacturing establishments. "Let our workshops remain in Europe."
In a letter to John Jay he wrote: "I consider the
class of artificers as panderers of vice and the instruments by which the liberties of a country are
generally overthrown."" He even considered yellow fever a providential blessing because "it will
discourage the growth of great cities in our nation,
and I view these great cities as pestilential to the
morals, to the health, and to the liberties of manCurtis, pp. 295, 296.  2 Ibid., p. 90.
C 57 




THOMAS JEFFERSON
kind."' He wrote that he was "not a friend to
a very energetic government. It was always oppressive." Elsewhere he declared,"A free government is of all others the most energetic." He was
so steeped in the French ideas of universal equality and the importance of addressing everybody
merely as " Citizen" that he wrote: "I hope that
the terms Excellency, Honor, Worship, Esquire,
will forever disappear from among us. I wish that
of Mister to follow them." 2
His hostility to the Constitution was not concealed. To John Adams he said: "I confess there
are things in it which stagger all my dispositions to
subscribe to what such an assembly has proposed.
The President seems a bad edition of a Polish
king." 3 To James Madison he said: "The second
feature I dislike, and what I strongly dislike is the
abandonment, in every instance, of the principle
of rotation in office."4 With characteristic inconsistency he afterward wrote to James Madison in
1 809," No Constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government." Yet to the same man he had written,
from the midst of the French Revolution, deprecating the idea that Shays's Rebellion constituted
a reason for hastening the adoption of the Constitution, or making it a strong one. " God forbid," he
exclaimed," that we should be twenty years without a rebellion. We have had thirteen states indeCurtis, p. 91.  Ibid., p. 303.
Ibid., p. 81.  'bid., p. 81.
C 58 J




THOMAS JEFFERSON
pendent for eleven years. There has been but one
rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century
and a half for each state.What country ever existed
a century and a half without a rebellion? What signifies a few lives lost in a century or two?The tree
of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with
the blood of patriots and tyrants."'And finally he
referred to the Constitution "as a kite sent up to
keep the hen-yard in order."
Afterward he became a stickler for the exact
terms of the Constitution.When the question of
the purchase of Louisiana first arose, apparently
he did not think of the Constitution at all. Then he
frankly admitted that the Constitution gave him
no authority to purchase Louisiana,2 and wrote to
'Curtis, p. 81.
2 " Mr. Jefferson admitted that he could find nowhere in the Constitution
authority to buy foreign territory. He believed that such a purchase would
be beyond the precedent even of Mr. Hamilton's 'implied powers,' and
wished a constitutional amendment passed to make good what his representatives had done, and he could not decline to accept. ' I had rather ask
an enlargement of power from the nation, when it is found necessary,' he
said, 'than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers
boundless. Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.' But in the same
breath with which he urged his scruple he declared his readiness to abandon
it. 'If our friends think differently,' he said, 'certainly I shall acquiesce
with satisfaction, confiding that the good sense of our country will correct
the evil of construction when it shall produce ill effects.'... The President acquiesced with startling facility in the apparent 'necessity of shutting up the Constitution' in such exigent cases of imperative policy.... He
stickled for a strict construction of the Constitution only when he thought
that a strict construction would safeguard the rights of common men and
keep the old Federalist theories of government at arm's length.... He
wanted as little governing from the Federal capital as might be.... It was
his weakness to think it safe for the friends of the people to make a 'blank
paper' of the Constitution, but the very gate of revolution for those who
C 59 1




THOMAS JEFFERSON
his political friends asking them to keep quiet about
the constitutional question.' In the same spirit
he was most rigid about expenditures of public
money, but always found ways to use it for new
ends, like the purchase of Louisiana, which he had
at heart.
He was the author of the Kentucky resolutions,
which supported the extremist doctrine of state
rights and justified nullification; and yet he wrote
elsewhere that "when any one state in the American Union refuses obedience to the Confederation
to which they have bound themselves, the rest
have the natural right to compel it to obedience."2
Surely here are enough inconsistencies and extravagances to show the need for Mr. Madison's
plea that "allowance be made for them." In most
of them he was absolutely sincere. But no sketch
of his career or estimate of his character would be
honest without some mention of others for which
such an excuse cannot be offered.
His ordinary way of life was that of a rich, cultivated country gentleman. His political pose was
that of a farmer, eager for plain living like the
common people. But his plain living required the
best house in Virginia, with a whole mountain for
were not Democrats. If only Democrats led, 'the good sense of the country
would correct the evil of construction when it should produce ill effects'!".4 History of the American People," by Woodrow Wilson, vol. iii, pp.
182, 183. The author of these significant comments is the present official
head of the party which Mr. Jefferson founded, and so long controlled, and
is the President of the United States.
'Foley's Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, pp. 510, 511, pars. 4806, 4809, 4811.
'Curtis, p. 302.
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THOMAS JEFFERSON
its site, surrounded by ten thousand acres of land,
which he owned and his slaves cultivated for him.
It also required a French cook, with the best wines
and sweetmeats specially imported for his use. His
ordinary dress was such as became his station, and
when he was Minister in France he was admired
for his courteous manners no less than for his
charming hospitality. But when he became President, for reasons not hard to conjecture, he lapsed
into ostentatious slovenliness and bad manners, especially when dealing with the representatives of
foreign countries. He sharply criticised the social
demeanor of Washington and Adams, his predecessors, and professed for himself a great eagerness for " republican simplicity " and an earnest desire to escape " the glare of royalty and nobility."
All this affectation presently brought him into
trouble with no less a personage than the new
British Minister, who thus reported it:
"I called on Mr. Madison, who accompanied me officially
to introduce me to the President. We went together to
the Mansion House, I being in full official costume, as
the etiquette of my place required on such a formal introduction of a Minister of Great Britain to the President of
the United States. On arriving at the hall of audience we
found it empty, at which Mr. Madison seemed surprised,
and proceeded to an entry leading to the President's study.
I followed him, supposing that the introduction was to
take place in an adjoining room. At this moment Mr. Jefferson entered the entry at the other end, and all three
of us were packed in the narrow space, from which, to
make room, I was obliged to back out. In this awkward
E 61 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
position my introduction to the President was made by
Mr. Madison.
" Mr. Jefferson's appearance soon explained to me that
the general circumstances of my reception had not been
accidental but studied. I, in my official costume, found
myself, at the hour of reception he had himself appointed,
introduced to a man as the President of the United States,
not merely in an undress, but actually standing in slippers down at the heels and both pantaloons, coat and
underclothes indicative of utter slovenliness and indifference to appearances, and in a state of negligence actually
studied." '
About the same time he formally introduced in his
official dinners at the White House the rule that
there should be no precedence and no assignment
of seats-that people should go in as they liked
and take what seats they could find. Both the British and Spanish Ministers officially reported offensive situations in which they found themselves involved through this rule. Ultimately the diplomatic
corps held a meeting on the subject to express their
resentment, and the French Minister wrote Talleyrand that " Washington society is turned upside
down." Mr. Jefferson found himself so annoyed by
the bearing of the Spanish Minister, Sefior Yrujo,
that he asked his recall, and had to submit to a
snub from the Spanish government, which took no
notice of his request. Such and other troubles in
which this affected" simplicity of life" involved him
were probably what led to his complete reversal
of these habits toward the middle of his second
Parton's Life, p. 619.
1 62 J




THOMAS JEFFERSON
Administration. From that time he became again
the courtly host and courteous gentleman of Monticello or of the French mission.
Mr. Jefferson's expressions of opinion concerning England were so conflicting at different periods
as to suggest that they were uncandid and for a purpose. Thus he wrote at one time: "No two countries upon earth have so many points of common
interest and friendship; and their rulers must be
great bunglers indeed if with such dispositions they
break them asunder."' At another time, only a few
months before the Declaration, he wrote: "There
is not in the British Empire a man who more
cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I
do."2 Some years later he wrote to Mr. Monroe,
" We have more reason to hate England than any
nation on earth,"3 and to William Carmichael, "I
considered the English as our natural enemy, and
as the only nation on earth that wish us ill from the
bottom of their souls."And to Lafayette, "England's selfish principles render her incapable of
honorable patronage or disinterested co6peration.'
Then he discovered that Napoleon had outwitted
him in securing from Spain the re-cession of Louisiana; and instantly he was in love again with England. He wrote to Livingston in France: "The day
that France takes possession of New Orleans...
seals the union of two nations who, in conjunction,
can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean.
Ford's edition of the Writings, vol. iii, p. 404.
Randall's Life, vol. i, p. 123.  8 Curtis, p. 197.
C 63 3




THOMAS JEFFERSON
From that moment we must marry ourselves to
the British fleet and nation."' 
He was unjustly accused of irreligion. He had
asked James Madison " whether the liberties of a
nation could be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the
minds of the people that these liberties are of the
gift of God." In fact, no man had deeper religious
feeling-or a greater variety of religious belief.
He was born in and adhered for a time to his parish church (Episcopal) in Virginia. At one time he
wanted to bring over the Calvinistic University
from Geneva, with all its professors, and use it as
the basis for the University of Virginia. At another
time he wished to do the same with the equally
Calvinistic University of Edinburgh, and urged the
legislature of Virginia to pay the expense of the
transfer of the entire faculty and assume the responsibility of their support " for the good of our
country in general and the promotion of science."
These two universities he then regarded as preeminent in all Europe. Later (when he was past
eighty, and had by this time become a Unitarian),
he denounced Calvinism in his usual vehement
way. "The five points of Calvinism," he wrote,
" were a blasphemous absurdity-the hocus-pocus
phantasm of a God created by Calvin which, like
another Cerberus, had one body and three heads."
It would be more pardonable, he said, ""to believe
in no God at all than to blaspheme Him by the
1 AHistory of the American People, by Woodrow Wilson, vol. iii, p. 180.
C 64 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
atrocious attributes of Calvin."'1 Such utterances
doubtless explain the frequent charge of irreligion.
He never outgrew the vulgar and ill-bred habit
of sneering at conscientious beliefs he could not
at the moment share-never learned that only a
boor could insult the religious convictions of anybody.
In 181 6, when already out of public life, he allowed a pamphlet, issued by Dr. Lyman Beecher,
to draw him into some remarkable expressions,
addressed first to an unknown northern correspondent, the more extreme statements then taken
out, and sent to the editor of " The Richmond Enquirer," with the request for their publication, the
authorship to be carefully concealed. In the letter
asking this, he describes Dr. Beecher's pamphlet
as "the most bold and impudent stride New England has ever taken in arrogating an ascendency
over the rest of the Union." He wrote: " I am not
afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all
their various batteriesof pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering, without being
able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East
to the saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution,
in proportion to the information or ignorance of
those on whom their interested duperies were to
be paid off. Their sway in New England is indeed
formidable. The nation must be awaked to save
Curtis, pp. 324, 325.
C 65 D




THOMAS JEFFERSON
itself by its own exertions or we are undone.
I hope your trumpet [, The Richmond Enquirer "J
will make itself heard."'
Virginia, whose superior religious enlightenment was vaunted in this same letter, had early
made it penal in parents to refuse to have their
children baptized; had prohibited the unlawful assembling of Quakers; had made it penal for any
master of a vessel to bring any Quaker into the
state, and ordered those already there and such
as came thereafter to be imprisoned until they
should abjure; had provided a mild punishment for
their first and second returns, but death for their
third; had prohibited all persons from suffering
their meetings in or near their houses or importing
books which supported their tenets. These facts
had been recorded by Jefferson himself in his
""Notes on Virginia,"' and, besides, it had tasked
his own early zeal to carry the statute for religious
freedom in the colony. It is idle, then, to regard
these wild expressions as the serious convictions
about religion or religions of either a philosopher
or a statesman. They were merely the petulant
spleen of a man harassed by political attack and
newspaper abuse-or perhaps the pose of a politician to affect his followers-the same politician
who thought it desirable to transform himself from
a gentleman to an uncouth boor in order to receive
foreign Ministers, in due "republican simplicity."
' Ford's edition of the Writing8, vol. x, pp. 12-14.
2 Page 167, edition of 1788.
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THOMAS JEFFERSON
One of the most inexcusable features in his
political struggles was his use of the blackmailers,
Callender, Freneau, and others, in his vindictive
warfare against Hamilton. The most miserable
scandal of that whole period was a scurrilous attack upon Hamilton's private morals and official
integrity, prepared and published by Callender.
Some historians have even asserted that it was submitted by him to Jefferson for approval before its
publication, as were attacks by other blackmailers.
Mr. Jefferson knew, at any ratewith whom hewas
dealing, for the man had already been in prison,
and he had pardoned him. He soon received a just
punishment, for Callender turned upon him and
slandered him more villainously even than he had
slandered Hamilton, on the same lines, and with
as little cause.
No account of the man's great career is complete or honest which does not make some mention of these odious details; but it is time to turn
to another and more agreeable side of him, as revealed in his personal relations to his political associates, to his followers, and his intimate friends, in
the times that tried men's souls. He rarely lost
a friend or a follower. The foibles and even the
follies and worse that have been mentioned were
known, but did not deprive him of the enthusiastic
admiration of the great party which long ruled the
country. They did not even detract materially from
the affectionate regard in which he came to be
held by all who remembered the Revolutionary
C 67 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
struggle. Some placed him next to Washington
and Franklin; some placed him beside John Adams.
Most Americans counted him in the first halfdozen of " the Revolutionary Fathers."
In his family circle he was adored. Everything
indicates that he was the most affectionate of husbands and the most devoted of parents. In a period
of storm and attack from unexpected quarters his
wife wrote of him: " He is so good himself, he cannot understand how bad others can be." His neighbors were all his friends. They probably knew that
the real character of the man (however variable it
might sometimes seem) was revealed in this brief
letter, written at the request of a man who had
named a son after him: " I am sensible of the mark
of esteem manifested by the name you have given
your son. Tell him from me that he must consider
as essentially belonging to it, to love his friends and
wish no ill of his enemies." His county and his state
kept him in office as long as possible, and seemed
always eager for his advice in every emergency.
To them he was the one unquestioned political authority; and his influence was scarcely shaken even
by the disastrous failure of his embargo policy or
the pitiful results from his hatred of the navy. In
fact, he had a genius for persuading, not merely his
friends, but a majority of the voters, that his judgment was infallible and that their liberties were
only safe while he was on guard to sound the first
alarm.
Another letter to a namesake gives amore touch[ 68 ]




THOMAS JEFFERSON
ing revelation of character. It was not to be opened
till the old man had passed away:
"This letter will, to you, be as one from the dead. The
writer will be in the grave before you can weigh its counsels. Your affectionate and excellent father has requested
that I would address to you something which might possibly have a favorable influence upon the course of life
you have to run; and I, too, as a namesake, feel an interest in that course. Few words will be necessary with good
dispositions on your part. Adore God. Reverence and
cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself,
and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true.
Murmur not of the ways of Providence. So shall the life
into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss. And if to the dead it is permitted
to care for the things of this world, every action of your
life will be under my regard. Farewell.
TH. JEFFERSON.
Monticello, Feb. 21st, 1825.'
On the Fourth of July, 1826, John Adams was
slowly dying,amid the noisy rejoicing, already universal over every recurrence of the great anniversary. In a final effort to make himself understood
by the family, this old and fervid friend and opponent whispered, "Thomas Jefferson still lives."
They were Adams's last words, and they were
prophetic. That strange medley of inconsistency,
extravagance, enthusiasm, and fervid patriotic devotion to whom he referred had in fact passed away
a few hours earlier. But the author of the statute
for religious liberty in Virginia and of the Declara'Ford's edition of the Writings, vol. x, p. 340.
[ 69 1




THOMAS JEFFERSON
tion of Independence, the founder of the University
of Virginia, and the purchaser of Louisiana "still
lives" in the respectful memory of the world and
in the affection of the people of the continent he
served. I venture to appropriate for him the lines
of Shelley"till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity."


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EDMUND BURKE








EDMUND BURKE


W     HAT a story of the great Georgian and
Victorian times might be reconstructed
from the tablets in memory of former residents,
which have been set up in the streets of Bath! The
town has been a haunt of great men; the very air
is filled yet with the shadows of the mighty. Foremost in the civic record comes the masterful Chatham, and hard after, his yet more masterful son.
Then is commemorated the stay in Bath of Britain's
greatest sailor, Lord Nelson,and of British soldiers
who won imperishable renown in two remote
continents, Lord Clive in Asia, General Wolfe in
America. The town has cherished, likewise, the
memories of residents of gentler fame. On the
North Parade, as tablets show, dwelt Goldsmith,
whom to this day, all men love, and Wordsworth,
whom all admire. On the South Parade is seen a
tribute to the best novelist Britain had to that time
produced, Sir Walter Scott, and there is place for
another to one of the greatest men of letters she
ever had, Samuel Johnson. The other novelists remembered in Bath range from Henry Fielding and
Jane Austen to Charles Dickens; and the poets
from George Crabbe to Thomas Moore and Walter Savage Landor; while with impartial hands
there have been placed tablets also for Gainsborough, the artist, Quin, the actor, and Herschel, the
astronomer.
And yet, in all this brilliant galaxy, the greatest,
C 73 r




EDMUND BURKE
Edmund Burke, was left to the last. He was more
nearly the town's own, too, than many of the
others. It was in Bath that he found his devoted
wife. Perhaps the most fruitful period of his great
public career he spent as the representative in the
House of Commons for the neighboring people of
Bristol. To Bath he came repeatedly for rest and
enjoyment; and came, too, when he knew the
shadow of death was upon him. In the house which
now has its tablet he spent the last month in which
any activity was left him, and he only quitted it
for the serene and beautiful death-bed at Beaconsfield.'
Have I gone too far in rating him the greatest yet commemorated in Bath? It is not so far as
Macaulay went. He said quite simply that Edmund
Burke was "the greatest man then living," and,
1The day before Mr. Burke left Bath, for the last time, May 23, 1797,
he sent a letter to Mrs. Leadbeater, written by another hand, but with
a tremulous signature from his own, saying: " I feel as I ought to do your
constant hereditary kindness to me and mine. What you have heard of my
illness is far from exaggerated. I am, thank God, alive, and that is all.
Hastening to dissolution, I have to bless Providence that I do not suffer a
great deal of pain.... I have been at Bath these four months to no purpose, and am therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield tomorrow, to be nearer to an habitation more permanent, humbly and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better mansion."
The same day he sent a letter to Arthur Young, beginning as follows:
"I am on the point of leaving Bath, having no further hope of benefit
from these waters; and as soon as I get home, (if I should live to get home,)
if I should find the papers transmitted me by your board, I shall send
them faithfully to you, though, to say the truth, I do not think them of
very great importance. My constant opinion was, and is, that all matters
relative to labour ought to be left to the conventions of the parties; that
the great danger is, in governments intermeddling too much."
1 74 1




EDMUND BURKE
again, "the greatest man since Milton." We may
be sure the eminent historian and almost omniscient scholar and critic forgot neither of two other
great men then living, William Pitt or Charles
James Fox, when he deliberately chose that superlative. It is not so far as Grenville went, when he
said that Burke is to politics what Shakespeare is
to the moral world. In considering that eulogium,
however,I must confessthat, while recognizing the
propriety of coupling the names, I have often been
puzzled to know whether Grenville meant that
politics had nothing to do with morals, or merely
that Shakespeare had nothing to do with politics. It
is not so far as Mackintosh went, who considered
Burke "without a parallel in any age or country,
unless with Cicero and Lord Bacon." There is an
estimate by Lord Morley which I would also like to
quote. He said that Burke's " is one of the greatest
names in the history of political literature. No one
that ever lived used the general ideas of the thinker
more successfully than Burke, the particular problems of the statesman. He was one of the great
masters of the high and difficult art of elaborate
composition."
This last indeed has been one of the complaints against him. Even now we hear occasionally
from some Parliamentary authority, whose own
speeches no doubt have their effect at the moment,
but are found a few years later as dry as last year's
prairie grass and as unreadable as a table of logarithms, that Mr. Burke would never do for the: 75 1




EDMUND BURKE
practical House of Commons of these times-he
is too rhetorical and ornate. It may be so; it is not
for me to defend the taste of the day in political discussions. But what could be terser, what could go
more directly like an arrow to the heart of the
matter in hand, than many of the epigrammatic
sentences which sprinkle almost every page of his
speeches. Take a very familiar example: "' It looks
to me narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary
ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest.
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people." Has any recent oratorfree from the alleged fault of too much rhetoric,
condensed into fewer and more cogent words the
argument against an historic error in the statesmanship of more than one land? Or take another example: " Gentlemen say that America is an object
well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a
people be the best way of gaining them." Or again:
" Nobody shall persuade me, when a whole people
are concerned, that acts of lenity are not means of
conciliation." Or again, take the pregnant sentence
into which he put the whole philosophy of his opposition to the French Revolution: "Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither
is in my opinion safe." Or again, take his whimsical
expression of his dislike for the employment of
Hessian soldiers against English colonists: cc I fairly
acknowledge I have not yet learned to delight in
finding Fort Kniphausen in the heart of the British
dominions." Or again, his candid estimate of the
C 76 7




EDMUND BURKE
success these Hessians gained: "You have the
ground they encamp on, and you have no more."
Or again, in resisting the reactionary tendencies
which would have carried the rule of George III
back to the standard of Charles I: " The people of
England were then, as they are now, called upon
to make government strong. They thought it a
great deal better to make it wise and honest." Or,
to take a final example, what could better expose
the imbecility of the proposal to treat privateering
as piracy, and service in the colonial army as treason, and to enforce against both where opportunity
offered, the penalties in the statute of Henry VIII,
than his scornful phrase: " They think the defeats
in America can be compensated by the triumphs
of Tyburn." If illuminating flashes like these are
a fault in political discussion, they are at least a
fault not too common among the public men of our
day. Would that more debates were "too ornate
and rhetorical" after this convincing fashion.
Mr. Burke illustrated conspicuously another
quality not too common among public men. He
scorned to pander to the prejudices of his constituents, or bow to every gust of changing opinion,
in order to hold their vote. Even when first a candidate in Bristol, he took pains to make it clear
that he would not recognize their instructions as
always binding his action. "Your representative
owes you," he exclaimed, "not his industry only,
but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices that to your opinon." Later,
C 77 r




EDMUND BURKE
when this attitude had excited discontent, he told
them if they did not permit their member to act
upon a very enlarged view of things, they would
at length infallibly degrade their national representation into a confused and scuffling bustle of
local agency. He knew efforts had been made
to injure him in their eyes, but "the use of character is to be a shield against calumny." "I could
not have served you as I have done," he proudly
added to the electors, "and court you too. I canvassed you through your affairs and not your persons. You must look to the whole tenor of your
member's conduct."
It proved in the end too much to hope for, even
in a city like Bristol and with a man like Burke.
Yet Bristol may well be proud of the wisdom that
chose Burke as its representative during that part
of his public service which time has most thoroughly vindicated, and can join with us in admiring the fine and calm dignity with which he accepted his ultimate dismissal. He rejoiced that the
justice of his course whether as to Ireland or Am erica was no longer in doubt. "No," he exclaimed,
"the charges against me are all of one kind, that
I pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far, farther than a cautious policy
would warrant, and farther than the opinions of
many would go along with me. In every accident
which may happen through life, in pain, in sorrow,
in depression, and distress, I will call to mind this
accusation and be comforted." If his lofty shade
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EDMUND BURKE
takes any cognizance now of human affairs, he may
read what these communities themselves think of
that accusation in the Bristol statue and the Bath
tablet.
Naturally, Mr. Burke never reached high office.
He was a party man, and most useful and highly
prized as such; but not what the managers call a
safe party man; and he had the defects of his oratorical temperament. It is not necessary to dwell on
these; but it ought always to be said when they are
mentioned, that even his failings leaned to virtue's
side. He shone in every field where his abilities
were exerted, and left a great record in many
-in economical reform, in defence of the principles underlying the Revolution of 1688; in tender
care for the land of his birth and the Church of his
mother; in resistance alike to the reactionary policy of the ministry, to injustice in India, and to
the destructive tendencies of the French Revolution. But I may be pardoned for thinking that the
highest service of his whole illustrious career, the
most courageous at the time, the wisest, the most
far-seeing, was found in his outspoken sympathy
with the American colonists, and in his protracted
and unflinching resistance to the measures which
brought about the American Revolution.
No other man in England, hardly one even in
America, saw quite so clearly as Edmund Burke
that after an unwise ministry had forced the col-: 79 J




EDMUND BURKE
onists into a long war in defence of the English
principle of no taxation without representation, the
only possible outcome of the war by which the real
England could succeed was an American victory.
Yet no other deprecated the struggle so much;
no other at the outset more sincerely desired to
preserve the authority of Parliament and the just
rights of the crown. He even admitted the precedents, both in Great Britain and in the colonies,
for taxation without representation. But when once
the right was determinedly challenged, he frankly
recognized that, as he put it in lawyer-like phrase,
"the assertion of the title would be the loss of the
suit." While there was still a chance to draw back,
he pleaded with the ministry and with Parliament: "It is our business to rule, not to wrangle.
It is poor compensation to triumph in a dispute,
whilst we lose an empire." "Your ancestors," he
exclaimed, "did at length open their eyes to the
ill-husbandry of injustice. They found that the
tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the
least be endured." And then he reminded the ministry that, while reciting the entire and perfect
authority of the crown, its predecessors had nevertheless, with the approval of the crown, given
successively to various English communities and
also to the Welsh all the rights and privileges of
English subjects. "Are not the colonists," he demanded, "as much Englishmen as the Welsh?"
By such steps he came to regard the struggle as
not a rebellion, but a civil war, in which EnglishC 80 J




EDMUND BURKE
men in the colonies fought for old English rights,
and in gaining these rights for themselves made
them henceforth forever secure for England, too.
In fact, upon this common English heritage he
grounded his appeals: "This fierce spirit of liberty,"
he told Parliament, "is stronger in the English
colonies, probably, than in any other people of the
earth. They are not only devoted to liberty, but to
liberty according to English ideas and on English
principles." And again, "We cannot falsify, I fear,
the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade
them that they are not sprung from a nation in
whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The
language in which they would hear you tell them
this tale would detect the imposition; your speech
would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman
into slavery." He made his plea unanswerable
by grounding it upon undisputed historical facts:
"The feelings of the colonies were formerly the
feelings of Great Britain. They were formerly
the feelings of Mr. Hampden, when called upon
for the payment of twenty shillings." And later on
in the discussion he uttered the prophetic warning,
"English colonies must be had on these terms, or
nothad at all." What Mr. Burke constantly sought,
in the American business,while it was possible,was
reconciliation. His most importantutterance during
the long debate, from the Stamp Act to the Declaration of Independence, was entitled " Conciliation
with America," and English oratory contains no
C 81 n




EDMUND BURKE
more powerful or persuasive plea for peace. A
month after the momentous Declaration, he wrote:
" We are deep in blood. God knows how it will be.
I do not see how I can wish success to those whose
victory is to separate from us a large and noble
part of our empire; still less do I wish success to
injustice, oppression and absurdity."
This sheer mental inability to support injustice was
the key to his whole conduct in American affairsto his whole conduct, indeed, in every public affair.
It is this which makes his discussions of old eighteenth century issues a vivid and vital part of the
English literature still cherished in the twentieth
century. Their great value was and is that he constantly looked to enduring principles for light on
current problems. That was the crowning trait
in the wonderful equipment which made him the
greatest orator of his country, and its most splendid writer on public affairs-the only man, as a
critic of the day said, who had combined the two
qualities in like perfection since Cicero. Such rank
he won, by contemporary judgment and by that
of posterity, in an epoch of great men and great
deeds-the greatest, as Lord Rosebery has somewhere observed, in the history of the world up to
that time, since the coming of Christ.
I have not mentioned what many may now consider his highest claim on grateful remembrance.
He is the author of the successful imperial policy: 82 ]




EDMUND BURKE
of Great Britain. The ablest imperialist of to-day
could not state it more clearly or comprehensively
than Burke did:
"My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which
grows from common names, from kindred blood, from
similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties
which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron.
Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights
associated with your government; -they will cling and
grapple to you; and no force under heaven will be of
power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once
understood that your government may be one thing, and
their privileges another; that these two things may exist
without any mutual relation; the cement is gone; the cohesion is loosened; and everything hastens to decay and
dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the
sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of
liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The
more they multiply, the more friends you will have; the
more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be
their obedience.... Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break the sole bond, which originally made,
and must still preserve, the unity of the empire.... It
is the spirit of the English constitution, which, infused
through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies, every part of the empire, even down to
the minutest member."
The policy thus outlined was rejected by the monarch of the day with disastrous results. It has since
been accepted with fervorand fidelity byhis grand-: 83 ]




EDMUND BURKE
daughter and his great-grandson. Under their beneficent reigns the British Empire has grown to
deserve, far more fully even than when it was uttered, the familiar eulogy by the great Massachusetts Senator: "A power which has dotted over the
surface of the whole globe with her possessions
and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the
hours, circles the earth with one continuous and
unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."
The earth is still circled with these, but now also
with sweeter strains-those rising from the common language, common institutions, and common
aims and aspirations of a reconciled race, carrying
civilization to the remotest parts of the earth, and
making more and more for universal peace.
I have only one thing to add. The colonists whom
Burke befriended were after all but a feeble folk,
less than three millions, scattered along the eastern fringe of a continent, with the ocean on one
hand and a savage wilderness on the other. They
have since subdued the wilderness, overspread the
continent, and stretched out in either hemisphere to
the islands of the sea. It has been a high privilege,
on Burke's threshold, to utter the voice, feebly
and inadequately, it may be, but the authentic
voice, of that people of now nearly ninety million
souls in reverent and affectionate gratitude for the
memory, the undying memory, of their foremost
friend in Great Britain.
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THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
THE ULSTER SCOT




I




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
THE ULSTER SCOT
N    O man may presume to depreciate either the
Puritan or the Cavalier. But, when they are
praised-as they must be forever while heroism
and great achievements are honored among the
generations of men-the praise should be forwhat
they did, rather than for what they conspicuously
did not do. The Puritan did not seek a new world
to establish liberty of conscience-far from it. He
only sought a world where he could impose his
own conscience on everybody else. The Cavalier
did not seek a new world where he could establish universal freedom. He only sought freedom
for himself. Even for the early Scottish emigrants
sent out to him he had no use save as bondservants. Later on he found them also useful as Presidents. Neither the Puritan nor the Cavalier went
to America in resistance to tyranny. The Puritans
who sought to resist tyranny stayed in England, in
the army with Fairfax, while those who felt otherwise went to the colonies. The Cavaliers in the
main left England for America when the Commonwealth army had defeated them. Neither the
Puritan nor the Cavalier, when at liberty to work
out their own ideals, established popular government in the New World,though the Puritans were
much farther from it than the Cavaliers. Under
the Puritans, no man could vote unless he were
a church member, and in good standing with the
[ 87 




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
church authorities. Under the Cavaliers, piety may
not have been so essential, but freedom from any
debt for service was, and no man, even no white
man, could vote without it.
The Puritans, as we have seen, did not seek
a land of religious freedom, nor did they make one.
They drove Roger Williams out because he was
a Baptist. They tried Quakers for heresy, bored
holes in their tongues with hot irons, and if after
this any confiding Quaker trusted himself again to
the religious freedom of the colony, they hanged
him. They tried old women for witchcraft, and
hanged them. As late as 1692,Cotton Mather himself rode from Boston to Salem to witness the hanging of another minister, George Burroughs, for the
crime of not believing in witchcraft, and according
to most authorities not only approved but actively
encouraged the atrocity.' If we should be inclined,
however, to judge the Rev. Mr. Mather harshly for
this, and by modern standards, let us remember
John Fiske: JNew France and New England, p. 170 (New York,
1904); Appleton's Cyclopcedia of American Biography, vol. i, p. 470;
Bancroft's History, vol. i, p. 451, vol. iii, pp. 72, 84, 88, 93, 97 (Boston, 1867-68); Edmund Burke: European Settlements in America; John
Fiske: Beginnings of New England (New York, 1898), pp. 208-218.
Charles Francis Adams, in Massachusetts: its Historians and its History, says on this point: "The trouble with the historical writers who
have taken upon themselves the defence of the founders of Massachusetts
is that they have tried to sophisticate away the facts.... But there that
record is: and it will not out. Roger Williams, John Wheelwright, and
Anne Hutchinson come back from their banishment, and stand there as
witnesses; the Quakers and Baptists, with eyes that forever glare, swing
from the gallows or turn about at the cart's tail. In Spain it was the
dungeon, the rack, and the fagot; in Massachusetts it was banishment,
the whip, and the gibbet. In neither case can the records be obliterated.
C88 J




THE ULSTER SCOT
the fact that some time afterward the same Cotton
Mather was decorated with the degree of Doctor
of Divinity by the University of Glasgow!
Neither Puritans nor Cavaliers led in the struggle for freedom of speech and of the press. That
honor belongs to a Scot, Andrew Hamilton, who
went in 1695 from Edinburgh to America, where
he rose to be attorney-general of Pennsylvania.
Forty years after his arrival he defended the New
York printer, Zenger, in a trial for libel on the
royal governor, which was construed as libel on
the king. The colonist from Edinburgh defied official threats, resisted the bitterly unfriendly court,
and by his impassioned eloquence fairly wrested an
acquittal from the jury, and secured the freedom
of speech and of the press ever since enjoyed in
America-sometimes, perhaps, over-enjoyed.1
Neither Puritans nor Cavaliers began the demand for "no taxation without representation"
which became the shibboleth of the Revolution.
The principle thus formulated appeared first in
1740 in the controversy between the Provincial
Assembly of Pennsylvania and the governor and
the proprietary party. The substance of the long
discussion in the Assembly was that as the king
claims no power of levying taxes without the consent of Parliament, there should be no taxation
without representation.2
Documentary History of New York, vol. iv, pp. 1037-1059.
Proceedings of Pennsylvania Historical Society, 1882, "Pennsylvania's
Formative Influence upon Federal Institutions," by William A. Wallace.: 89 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
Neither Puritan nor Cavalier kindled the popular flame for independence. Two years before
James Otis's famous speech in the Boston Town
House in 1761, Patrick Henry, a Scot, had done
that in Virginia, in the defence against the noted
"Parsons' Cause." Here he maintained the indisputable right of Virginia to make laws for herself, arraigned the king for annulling a salutary
ordinance in the sole interest of a favored class,
and said, "by such acts a king, instead of being
the Father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant
and forfeits all right to obedience." The Court
exclaimed "Treason," but the jury brought in its j
verdict against Patrick Henry's clients for one
penny, and thus "the fire in Virginia" began.1 It
may be interesting to remember that the mother
of the orator who started it was a cousin of the
Scottish historian Robertson and a cousin also of
the mother of Lord Brougham.
A later episode in the Virginia House of Burgesses blew this fire into a furnace flame. Patrick
Henry introduced resolutions prompted by the
Stamp Act, declaring that the inhabitants of Virginia inherited from the first adventurers and settlers of that dominion equal franchises with the
people of Great Britain; that taxation by themselves or by persons chosen to represent them was
the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom; that the General Assembly of the whole
colony have now the sole right to lay taxes on its
1 John Fiske:.American Revolution, vol. i, p. 18 (New York, 1896).
E 90o 




THE ULSTER SCOT
people, and that any attempt to vest such power
in any other persons whatever tended to destroy
British as well as American freedom. These resolutions were violently resisted by the Royalists; but
Patrick Henry rose above himself in urging their
adoption, and finally burst out with the exclamation, now one of the most familiar passages in all
our Revolutionary oratory: "Tarquin and Caesar
had each his Brutus; Charles I his Cromwell; and
George III —" "Treason," shouted the Speaker.
"Treason" echoed back from every part of the
House. But Patrick Henry had heard that cry before; and, with blazing eyes fixed on the Speaker,
fearlessly resumed his sentence: "and George III
may profit by their example.", So this perfervid
Scot not only carried the House, but sent the flame
for independence through every colony on the
continent-never from that hour to die out.
I have thus enumerated some abatements from the
prevalent unmixed and undiscriminating eulogy
of our Puritans and Cavaliers, for things they did
not do, as well as for the ever memorable things
they did, which are absolutely necessary to historic
accuracy. In spite of them, those pioneers, of illustrious and undying renown, brave beyond comparison, and rigidly conscientious according to
their lights, have always received and will always
receive ample justice for the inestimable work they
IGeorge Bancroft: History of the United States, vol. v, p. 277 (Boston,
1869).
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THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
really did. They were the first in the field. They
bore with heroism the privations and braved the
perils of those who first burst into a savage world;
and both privations and perils were beyond any
modern conception. The original Pilgrims were of
such stuff that, when their first dreary winter compelled them to bury half their entire number, and
the slow-coming, cheerless summer drove the survivors to incessant toil amid constant danger to lay
up some store for another winter, Governor Bradford, of immortal memory, summoned them to
come together at the end of the scanty harvestfor what? To give thanks to Almighty God for
the signal mercies He had vouchsafed them! As
great literary ability was developed among the descendants of these men,it is small wonder that such
devotion has since been celebrated at its full worth;
and perhaps sometimes to the disadvantage of later
comers, who were apt to be more concerned with
doing things than with recording things done.
Puritans and Cavaliers had possession of the field
for the first half of the seventeenth century. The
Scottish immigration began in the second half. It
never had the advantage of concentration in one
colony, like the Puritans in Massachusetts or the
Cavaliers in Virginia, or even like the settlements
of the Quakers and Germans in Pennsylvania. It
began,too, under circumstances that made the misfortunes of the Puritans and the Cavaliers seem
almost enviable. The first notable Scottish arrivals
C 92 J




THE ULSTER SCOT
were those shipped on the boat "John and Sara"
in 1652.1 They were prisoners of war, captured by
Cromwell after the battle of Dunbar, and sentenced
to be transported to the American plantations and
sold into service. Similar shipments of prisoners of
war, and then cargoes of convicted criminals, followed. After a time there sprang up also a system
by which poor men secured transportation to the
new and cheap lands of the colonies by selling in
advance their services for a term of years. And yet,
so rapidly did eager followers tread in the steps of
the involuntary immigrants that only a third of a
century after the first shipload of Scottish prisoners to be sold into service was landed at Boston, a
Scottish missionary, the Rev. James Blair, of Edinburgh, was founding one of the oldest of American
Colleges, William and Mary, in Virginia. In the
century then almost dawning that Scottish educational foundation in the South was to send out many
notable students-among them         one certainly who
has given the whole world cause to remember him
and the stock that trained him -Thomas Jeffersoni.2
1 Peter Ross, The Scot in America, p. 48.
Thomas Jefferson was of Welsh descent, as were also John Marshall and
James Madison. In the beginning of Jefferson's autobiography he pays this
tribute to one of his Scottish teachers at William and Mary: " In the spring
of 1760 I went to William and Mary College, where I continued two years.
It was my great good fortune, and what probably fixed the destinies of
ny life, that Dr. William Small, of Scotland, was then professor of mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a
happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an
enlarged and liberal mind. He most happily for me became soon attached
to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school;
E 93 1




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
Such,briefly stated,was the modest debut of the
new and greater force in American development,
-Scottish prisoners of war, transported and sold
into service; convicted Scottish criminals, transported and sold to get them out of the way; poor
but aspiring Scottish lads, selling themselves into
service to get a chance in the New World; pious
young men from Scottish universities, trying to
found like educational centres in the wilderness,
for the glory of God. They were nearly half a century behind the Cavaliers in making their start,
nearly a third of a century behind the Pilgrims.
But the tortoise did not lose the race.
Till the accession of George III the Scottish
immigration slowly increased. According to the
statistics of the Board of Trade, the white population of the several colonies, in August, 1755, was
1,058,000, thus divided:
Puritan colonies (New England), 405,000.
Cavalier colonies (Southern), 303,000.
Dutch, Quaker, and Huguenot colonies (Middle),
350,000.
That was America when George III came to the
throne. Even yet the Scot had not clearly fixed his
own stamp on any one of the colonies, or on any
large section of one, but in many places there was
now an important Scottish infusion that began to
leaven the lump.
Thus, shortly after the arrival of the "John and
and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science,
and of the system of things in which we are placed."
1 94:




THE ULSTER SCOT
Sara" prisoners,other Scottish fighting Presbyterians were brought out in the same way and became
founders of colonies in Maryland, and on the Elizabeth River in Virginia. Many inhabitants of northwestern Scotland, especially the clans of Macdonald and Macleod, were induced to emigrate; and
their reports drew after them whole neighborhoods
from the Isles of Raasay and Skye. Bladensburg
in Maryland, the Cape Fear region, and Wilmington in North Carolina, the York and Rappahannock Rivers in Virginia, and the vicinity of Albemarle Sound were all places at which such colonies
were established. In 1736 an emigrant company
of Highlanders started New Inverness in Darien,
Georgia; and Oglethorpe, eager for such protection for his young colony on the side nearest the
Spaniards in Florida, paid them a formal visit,
wearing Highland costume, and with the pipes
playing before him. Presently a rude fortification
was pushed out toward the Spanish frontier, which
was given the significant name of Fort St. Andrew. In 1738 an Argyllshire man, Captain Laughlin Campbell, took eighty-three families from his
own neighborhood to be established on a grant of
forty-seven thousand acres, which he had obtained
on the borders of Lake George, New York. Scottish Presbyterians were largely settlers in Putnam County, and others in Dutchess County, New
York.Various Highland regiments completed their
terms of service during the war with France for
the possession of North America, and others were
C 95 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
disbanded in America at its close. Considerable
numbers from all of them obtained grants of land
for settlement, and stayed in the Carolinas and
Virginia.
The Rev. John Livingston, of Ancrum, a follower
of John Knox in the Scottish Kirk, started to America in 1636,with other Scots and some English Puritans. But the " Eagle Wing" on which they were
embarked came from no American eagle; it was
driven back from mid-Atlantic by a violent storm.
Livingston made no further effort to emigrate to
America, but resumed his life in Scotland and had
a conspicuous career, ending twenty-seven years
later in banishment for non-conformity. Soon after
his death his younger son, Robert Livingston, took
up his father's interrupted plan, reached America,
and was presently established in a small office at
Albany under the colonial government. Here his
influence over the Indians and his aptitude for affairs so commended him to the royal governor that
thirteen years later he was given a concession for
a large tract of land on the Hudson. George I confirmed it and made him lord of the manor. Thus
this orphan waif from the Ancrum manse prospered in the new land, and became the founder of
an important Revolutionary family. Both son and
grandson of the Ancrum dominie held posts of
prominent public service throughout their lives;
while the next generation numbered among its
members a president of the New York Provinr 96 J




THE ULSTER SCOT
cial Congress of 1 775, a signer of the Declaration
of Independence, and that Governor of New Jersey who liberated his own slaves, officially recommended the abolition of slavery in his own state,
and secured the passage of an act forbidding the
importation of slaves. There came in one branch
of the family three brothers and three sisters, who
all led lives of value and public significance. The
eldest son was Chancellor Livingston, member of
the committee which framed the Declaration of Independence. He administered the oath of office to
George Washington as first President of the United
States. Jefferson sent him as Minister to France,
where he negotiated the purchase of Louisiana. On
his return he associated himself with Robert Fulton
in the application of steam to navigation. One of his
brothers, Henry B. Livingston, was a gallant Revolutionary officer. Another brother, Edward Livingston, codified the laws of Louisiana, and later
became Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson.
The three sisters became the wives respectively of
John Armstrong, Secretary of War under James
Madison, of Governor Morgan Lewis, of New
York, and of General Richard Montgomery.
This last was an Irish officer of the British army,
a native of Donegal, and a student of St. Andrews.
He served under Wolfe and Amherst in America,
gained the friendship of Edmund Burke, Isaac
Barre, and Charles James Fox in London, finally
sold out from the army, and returned to America
in 1773 to marry and settle down. He had spent
C 97 1




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
but two short years of married life when he was
seized by reason of his military record for a brigadier-generalship in the Continental army. His
duty sent him back over the field of his early experiences in Canada, and finally brought him with
Benedict Arnold under the walls of Quebec. There,
while gallantly leading his men in the attack,he fell.
The British commander, Sir Guy Carleton (first
Baron Dorchester), who had previously served
with Montgomery, now took pains to give him
honorable burial. Provoked at a eulogy on him
in the House of Commons by Edmund Burke,
Lord North said: "I cannot join in lamenting the
death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on
his virtues! They 've undone his country. He was
brave, he was able, humane, and generous; but
still he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel." The reply of a statesman came from
another friend of ours, Charles James Fox: "The
term of rebel is no certain mark of disgrace. The
great asserters of liberty, the saviours of their
country, the benefactors of mankind in all ages,
have been called rebels."
Forty-two years later New York reclaimed this
honored soldier for state burial, with every tribute
of national pride, in St. Paul's Churchyard, where
he still lies, in Broadway's central roar, under the
marble monument selected for him in Paris by
Benjamin Franklin. As the boat sent by the state
to bring back the hero, surrounded by all the trappings of military glory and mourning, approached
C 98 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
Montgomery Place (the home on the Hudson he
had been building for his bride when he was summoned to the war), she who had waited all these
years for his return appeared on the veranda to
see him pass. What wonder that, when the solemn convoy rounded the point, when the wail of
the funeral music was heard, and the flag of her
country dipped low to convey to the faithful, grayhaired widow the affectionate gratitude of the state
and nation, she was overpowered by the contending emotions of pride and grief and loneliness
with her dead, and fell fainting to the floor!
Another portentous Scot, born in Kirkcudbrightshire in 1747, went to Virginia when thirteen
years old, left it thenceforward only in the course
of his seafaring life, and was able long afterward
to say: "I had the honor to hoist with my own
hands the flag of freedom the first time it was displayed on the Delaware, and I have attended it
with veneration, ever since, on the ocean." Some
of this ocean service was such that his old country
put a price of ten thousand guineas on his head.
His new countrythought it worth the first captain's
commission in her navy, gave him command of
all American ships in European waters, tendered
him the thanks of Congress, and after the close of
the war voted him a gold medal. Scottish people,
considering this brave and brilliant contribution
from their country to the American navy, recalling
some mitigated local grievances, but remembering also the careful atonement, the magnificent
C 99 I




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
seamanship and courage, and the undeniable, the
world-wide fame, may very possibly find refuge
where Scottish people so often do, in their proverbial philosophy, and decide that if Admiral Paul
Jones was ower bad for blessing, he was certainly
ower good for banning.
If they wish, however, to exercise the undeniable gifts of the race for banning, there is another
famous Scottish American sailor whom we might
turn over to them with less reserve. This man, the
son of a clergyman, was born at Greenock about
1650. He first appears in America in 1691, when
the New York Colonial Assembly voted him its
thanks for services to the commerce of the colony,
and later gave him the more substantial reward
of Li 50. Governor Bellamont took him up, and
sent him out on a roving commission to sweep the
coast of pirates-a task he discharged so well that
he was now given L25o. Then he set up as a homemade pirate himself, filled the marine world with
stories of Captain Kidd's exploits and half our coast
with stories of Captain Kidd's buried treasures. At
last Lord Bellamont succeeded in arresting him.
England tried him, and he was hanged in chains
in Execution Dock. And yet Burns, who even had
pity for the Devil, might well have held a brief for
a worse man than this fellow Scot. Those were
wild days on the sea; even Great Britain had her
press-gangs, and sent out slavers, and it may be
that local magnates in the colonies, after the fashion of the times, thought it no harm to encourage
C 100 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
(for mutual benefit) a "gentleman adventurer,"
as the tolerant phrase was, in relieving Spaniards,
and "others beyond the pale," of their doubloons
and silks!
There can be no difference of opinion as to the
services of another great Scotsman, born at Yester, not far from Edinburgh, in the domain of the
Marquess of Tweeddale. He was a descendant on
his mother's side from John Knox,1 and had already a notable career, when in 1768 he yielded
to a second call from Princeton University, and became its president. He brought it to a place among
the foremost educational institutions of the land,
and impressed upon it, as some one has said, the
Scottish and Presbyterian thoroughness it maintained all through, from Witherspoon to McCosh.
He took besides a high-minded citizen's part in
all the fervid activities of the times; was directly
responsible for the settlement in Ryegate, Vermont, in 1774, of the Scottish colony under General James Whitelaw, which founded Caledonia
County; encouraged other Scottish immigration;
came to wield great influence in the Continen'A distinguished New England author, in a private letter, questions this
descent. His wife being a descendant of Witherspoon, he had felt an interest in establishing the relationship to John Knox. After careful investigation he finally concluded that there was no evidence of the fact, but
that the story was purely traditional and conjectural. The statement in the
text, however, seems to have been long and generally accepted. Thus the
recent edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica gives it as an unquestioned
fact. The great Dictionary of National Biography says substantially
the same thing, and in varying phrases the same statement is made in
Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Lamb's Biographical
Dictionary of the United States, and Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia.
C 101 J




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
tal Congress, and finally wrote the name of John
Witherspoon on that bead-roll of foremost Americans, the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It is perhaps what might have been expected
from the John Knox blood.
Many a son of Scottish Presbyterians in America has been drawn to the grave of Ralph Erskine,
a great man of their faith, in the picturesque burialground beside a noted old church in Dunfermline; but his reverence for the famous divine has
been tinged with a warmer feeling, from his remembrance that this Presbyterian seceder's son
was sent to America in charge of what are now
known as the Cooper and Hewitt ironworks at
Ringwood, New Jersey, from which place he rose
to be the trusted chief of engineers on the staff
of George Washington.
It was in isolated cases like these, and in scattered communities, that the Scottish immigrants
during the earlier part of George III's reign, from
1742 to 1776, had made themselves felt as leaders, even among the Puritans and Cavaliers. They
attained, too, an altogether disproportionate influence through their education, their energy, and
their sturdy principle,-and also, let it not be forgotten, through a native thrift that often made
them the wealthiest citizens in their respective
communities.
But it is now time to take into account another
stream of Scottish immigration —the Ulster Scot.
This term is preferred to the familiar "ScotchC 1021




THE ULSTER SCOT
Irish," constantly used in America, because it does
not confuse the race with the accident of birth, and
because the early immigrants preferred it themselves.' An Irishman's ready wit in his own case
bars out the other name. Since he was born in
Liverpool, the census enumerator was setting him
down as English, when he indignantly interrupted:
"Sure, and is it any rayson for calling a man a
horse because he was born in a stable?" And, in
fact, if these Scottish and Presbyterian colonists
must be called Irish because they had been one or
two generations in the North of Ireland, then the
Pilgrim Fathers, who had been one generation or
more in Holland, must by the same reasoning be
called Dutch, or at the very least English-Dutch.
1 Parker's IIitory of Londonderry, New Hampshire: " Although they
came to this land from Ireland, where their ancestors had, a century before, planted themselves, yet they retained unmixed the national Scotch
character. Nothing sooner offended them than to be called Irish. Their
antipathy to this appellation had its origin in the hostility then existing in
Ireland between the Celtic race, the native Irish, and the English and
Scotch colonists."
In the same work may be found a letter from the Rev. James MacGregor to Governor Shute, saying: " We are surprised to hear ourselves
termed Irish people, when we so frequently ventured our all for the British Crown and liberties... and gave all tests of our loyalty which the
Government of Ireland required, and are always ready to do the same
when required."
In the legislature of the Province of Pennsylvania (1 63-64) Nathaniel
Grubb, from Chester County, denounced the action of the Paxtang (now
Harrisburg) settlers, who had been stung by treacherous Indian attacks
into a wholesale slaughter of the Indians, and referred to the settlers as
a pack of insignificant Scotch-Irish, who, if they were all killed, could
well enough be spared."
An amusing controversy on the propriety of the term followed the
publication of an admirable paper on " The Scotch-Irish in America," by
Samuel Swett Green, read before the American Antiquarian Society, 1895.
tThe correspondence was printed in an appendix.
[ 103 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
In this new source of Scottish settlers for the
colonies the blood is the same and the religious
faith is the same, but they had been sent from Scotland to the North of Ireland one, two, or three
generations before; some by James I, others by
Cromwell; while others went later, attracted by
cheap farms and fancied opportunities for trade.
After a time they began to suffer from unfriendly
legislation, from Church persecution, and from the
hostility of the expelled British monarch, James II,
which among other things forced them to their
long and heroic defence of Londonderry. These
experiences turned their eyes after the Scotsmen
already prospering in the American colonies, and
presently a great movement began among the
Ulster Scots. In 1718 five small ships arrived at
Boston with about seven hundred and fifty of
them, who ultimately settled, some at Londonderry, New Hampshire, some in Boston, some at
Worcester, Massachusetts, and others near Portland, Maine. A year later some hundreds more of
Ulster-Scottish families were brought to the Kennebec River in Maine by Captain Robert Temple,
an ancestor of the well-known Robert C. Winthrop
of Massachusetts. These and succeeding parties
from Ulster soon made a considerable element in
the northern New England population.
William Penn was a man of business, and as
such he found it to his interest as early as 16892 to
secure as many Scots as possible for the second
colony in which he was concerned, that of New
C 104 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
Jersey. Its eastern portion was largely occupied by
them. Meantime the religious freedom which Penn
did establish, while the Puritans did not, combined
with the milder climate and the cheaper land, began to divert the further flow of Ulster-Scottish
immigration from its earlier field in New England
to western Pennsylvania. By 1725 they had made
such an impression there that the governor, James
Logan, declared, "It looks as if Ireland             were to
send all her inhabitants. If they continue to come,
they will make themselves proprietors of the Province." Only a little over a century and a half later,
Pittsburg alone was proprietor of greater values
than that, and its Congressman, John Dalzeil, was
able to sayof his town in the American phraseology,
that "it is Scotch-Irish in substantial origin,in complexion   and history-Scotch-Irish in the countenances of the living, and the records of the dead." 
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, in
John Dalzell: "The Scotch-Irish in Western Pennsylvania," Proceedings of Second Scotch-Irish Congress, p. 175.
An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of March 6,1738, shows
that at that early date the Ulster Scot imitated his kinsmen across the
Channel, in selling himself into service in order to reach the new country.
It reads:
"This is to give notice, That the Snow Charming Molly, Mr. Henry
McLachlan, Master, will be well fitted out, Mann'd and Victual'd, and
clear to sail from Belfast for New-Castle or Pensylvania in America,
against the first day of May next, the said Mr. McLachlan will treat with
any who have Goods to transport thither, or go as Passengers, Redemptioners, or Servants, on the most easy and reasonable terms."
A longer advertisement in the Belfast NXews-Letterof October 31, 1769,
shows that even then, only a few years before the Declaration of Independence, the same practice among immigrants prevailed of selling their
services in advance and going out to the new country as "redemptioners."
C  105    j




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
spite of the long start of the Quakers and the Germans, it was believed that one-third of the entire
population of Pennsylvania was of Ulster-Scottish
origin. As early as the middle of that century the
number of Presbyterians (Scots and Ulster Scots)
scattered through all the colonies was reckoned by
Dr. Charles Hodge, author of the " Constitutional
History of the Presbyterian Church," at largely
above a hundred thousand, perhaps nearly two
hundred thousand, as against the total number of
Puritans that ever came, which he puts at about
twenty-one thousand. By the time of the Zenger
trial in New York, the Presbyterians were far the
most numerous there, outnumbering the Dutch
Reformed or the Church of England membership.
In 1736 an Ulster Scot, Henry McCullock, settled between three and four thousand of his countrymen on a land grant of sixty-four thousand
acres in what is now the county of Duplin, North
Carolina. A few years later a steady stream of
Ulster Scots was pouring into Philadelphia, some
going west toward Pittsburg, and still farther,
to Kentucky and Tennessee; others turning south
sooner and filling the valleys of West Virginia, the
western parts of North and South Carolina, and
even Georgia, with rough clearings, log-cabin
schoolhouses, and Presbyterian churches. As early
as 1729 five thousand of them entered Pennsylvania alone in a year. After the famine it was estimated that twelve thousand of them reached the
colonies every year. A renewed movement began
C 106 J




THE ULSTER SCOT
in 1771, and by the end of 1773 it was reckoned
that thirty thousand more of them had come. One
authority, a New England historian,' counts that
between 1730 and 1 770 at least half a million souls
were transferred from Ulster to the colonies, more
than half the Presbyterian population of Ulster,
and that at the time of the Revolution they made
one-sixth of the total population of the colonies.
Another and very careful authority2 fixes the inhabitants of Scottish ancestry in the nine colonies
south of New England as about three hundred and
eighty-five thousand. He considers that less than
half of the entire population of the colonies was of
English origin, and that nearly or quite one-third
of it had a Scottish ancestry.
That was the numerical responsibility, then, of that
ancestry for the War of Independence. Its intellectual and moral responsibility was far more. It was
no author with Scottish blood in his veins, it was
the typical New Englander, George Bancroft, who
closed his account of the incoming of the Ulster
Scots with these words:
"They brought to America no submissive love for England; and their experience and their religion alike bade
them meet oppression with prompt resistance. We shall
find the first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve
all connection with Great Britain come not from the
'JohnFiske: Old Virginia andher Aeighbours(New York, 1897), vol. ii,
p. 394.
Charles A. Hanna: The Scotch-Irish (New York, 1902), vol. i, p. 83.
E 107 




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
Puritans of New England, or the Dutch of New York,
or the planters of Virginia, but from Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." 
But these are mainly statements gleaned from the
sparse records on the subject by American historians. I may add the views of two of England's
greatest historians in the last century, Froude and
Lecky. Mr. Froude says:
" And now recommenced the Protestant emigration....
Twenty thousand left Ulster on the destruction of the
woollen trade. Many more were driven away by the first
passage of the Test Act. The stream had slackened, in
the hope that the law would be altered. When the prospect was finally closed, men of spirit and energy refused
to remain;... and thenceforward, until... 1782, annual shiploads of families poured themselves out from
Belfast and Londonderry. The resentment which they
carried with them continued to burn in their new homes;
and, in the War of Independence, England had no fiercer
enemies than the grandsons and great-grandsons of the
Presbyterians who had held Ulster against Tyrconnell. "2
And again Mr. Froude says, with reference to the
action of Lord Donegal in 1772 concerning his
Antrim leases:
" The most substantial of the expelled tenantry gathered
their effects together and sailed to join their countrymen in the New World, where the Scotch-Irish became
known as the most bitter of the secessionists.... The
emigration was not the whole of the mischief. Those who
1 George Bancroft: History of the United Sates (Boston), vol. v, p. 77.
2Froude: The English in Ireland (London, 1872), vol. i, p. 392.
C 108 3




THE ULSTER SCOT
went carried their art and their tools along with them,
and at the rate at which the stream was flowing the colonies would soon have no need of British and Irish imports. In the two years which followed the Antrim evictions, thirty thousand Protestants left Ulster for a land.. where those who sowed the seed could reap the harvest. They went with bitterness in their hearts, cursing
and detesting the aristocratic system of which the ennobling qualities were lost, and only the worst retained.'... There is a Bunker's Hill close outside Belfast. Massachusetts tradition has forgotten how the name came
to the Charlestown Peninsula." 2
And here is Mr. Lecky's estimate as to the numbers and character of the Ulster emigration:
"For nearly three-quarters of a century the drain of
the energetic Protestant population continued.... The
famine of 1740 and 1741 gave an immense impulse to
the movement, and it is said that for several years the
Protestant emigrants from Ulster annually amounted to
about 12,000. More than thirty years later Arthur Young
found the stream still flowing, and he mentioned that,
in 1773, 4000 emigrants had sailed from Belfast alone.
Newenham, who, in his book on 'Irish Population,' has
collected much information on this subject, remarks: 'If
we said that during fifty years of the last century the
average annual emigrations to America and the West
Indies amounted to about 4000, and consequently that
in that space of time about 200,000 had emigrated to
the British plantations, I am disposed to think we should
Froude: The English in Ireland (London, 1872), vol. ii, p. 125.
Ibid., vol. ii, p. 124: "Bunker's Hill is supposed to be a corruption of
Brunker's Hill. Captain Brunker was an officer who came to Ulster with
Lord Essex in 1572, and received a grant of land in Antrim."
C 109 J




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
fall rather short of than exceed the truth.'... Many
went to the West Indies, and many others to the American colonies. They went with hearts burning with indignation, and in the War of Independence they were almost
to a man on the side of the insurgents. They supplied
some of the best soldiers of Washington. The famous
Pennsylvania Line was mainly Irish....Emigrants
from Ulster formed a great part of the American army. " 
In March, 1775, Patrick Henry, the Scot, uttered
in St. John's Church, Richmond, the fateful and
famous words: "It is too late to retire from the
contest. There is no retreat but in submission and
slavery. The war is inevitable,and let it come! The
next gale that sweeps from the north will bring
to our ears the clash of resounding arms! I know
not what course others may take, but, as for me,
give me liberty or give me death." Two months
later the Ulster Scots adopted the notable Mecklenburg resolution, declaring that the joint address
of the two Houses of Parliament to the king had
virtually " annulled and vacated all civil and military commissions granted by the crown, and suspended the constitutions of the colonies; " that " the
provincial congress of each province is now invested with all the legislative and executive powers
within their respective provinces, and no other
legislative or executive power does or can exist
at this time in any of the colonies." When asked
how they reconciled in their consciences this actionf
Lecky: IHitory of England in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1878),
vol. ii, p. 261.
C 110 




THE ULSTER SCOT
with their oaths of allegiance, they boldly answered: " The oath binds only while the king protects." 
A few months later came the Declaration of Independence, summing up the conclusions to which
for years the Scots and Ulster Scots had been leading. Out of the fifty-six members who composed
the Congress that adopted it, eleven were of Scottish descent; and among them were such conspicuous leaders as John Witherspoon, of New Jersey,
James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, Philip Livingston,
of New York, and Edward Rutledge, of South
Carolina. At the momentary and natural hesitation
to "put their necks in a halter" by signing this
document after its adoption, it was one of these
Scots, John Witherspoon again, who came to the
front and carried the day. "He that will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry
into effect its provisions," he said, "is unworthy
the name of freeman. For myself, although these
gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulchre, I
would infinitely rather they should descend thither
by the hand of the public executioner than desert
at this crisis the sacred cause of my country." On
that appeal of a Scotsman born, the Declaration
was signed. We guard it now, sacredly preserved
in the handwriting of the Ulster Scot who was the
secretary of the Congress; it was first publicly read
to the people by an Ulster Scot, and first printed
by a third Ulster Scot. Well might Froude write
Jolm Fiske: American Revolution (New York, 1896), vol. i, p. 133.
C 111 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
in another century: "The foremost, the most irreconcilable, the most determined in pushing the
quarrel to the last extremity were those whom the
bishops and Lord Donegal and Company had been
pleased to drive out of Ulster."
At the first news of the skirmish at Lexington,
John Stark, an Ulster Scot, of Londonderry, started
for Cambridge, hurriedly gathered together eight
hundred backwoodsmen, and marched with them
toward the sound of the enemy's guns at Bunker
Hill. It was there, facing the well-fed British
troops, that he gave the still remembered order,
"Boys, aim — at their waistbands." After Nathanael Greene, the other most noted general officers
from New England were John Stark and Henry
Knox, Ulster Scots, and John Sullivan, an Irishman. Three others of Scottish origin were among
Washington's major-generals at the close of the
war, William Alexander, of New Jersey, Alexander McDougall, of New York, and the gallant
and pathetic figure of Arthur St. Clair. Out of his
twenty-two brigadier-generals nine were of Scottish descent, and among the generals no longer
in the ranks at the close of the war a similar proportion had been maintained. Two of the most
noted battles in South Carolina, where half the population was Ulster Scottish, were those of King's
Mountain and Cowpens. At the first, five of the
colonels were Presbyterian ruling elders, and their
troops were mainly recruited from Presbyterian
settlements. At the Cowpens, General Morgan,
I 112 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
who commanded, and General Pickens were both
Presbyterian elders, and most of their troops were
Presbyterians. Several other Presbyterian elders
held high commands in the same state throughout
the war.
One of the greatest achievements of the war
occurred so far in the west that not till long afterward was its importance realized. This was the
rescue of Kentucky and of that whole rich territory northwest of the Ohio, subsequently forever
dedicated to freedom by the famous Ordinance
of 1787, from which five states were formed. For
that momentous work, carried on in obscurity
while attention was concentrated on the seaboard
colonies, without encouragement and with the
scantiest means, but with skill and with heroism,
we are indebted to General George Rogers Clark,
a Scottish native of Albemarle County, Virginia.
It was quite natural that we should have been indebted to his younger brother, as one of the leaders in the Lewis and Clark expedition, for the discoveries in the northwest and on the Columbia
River that may be said to have ultimately given us
the Pacific coast.
When the states gained their independence and
it came to framing a constitution for the new nation, out of fifty-four members of the Convention
twelve were of Scottish descent. But here, as on
many other occasions, the Scotsmen weighed far
more than their numbers would indicate. Of the
E 113 3




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
college-bred men in the Convention over one-half
were of Scottish descent.
One of them stood easily at the head, and for
pure intellectual eminence and the genius of statesmanship outranked, then and till his premature
death, any other living American. This was that
marvellous West Indian boy, half Scottish,half Huguenot French, Alexander Hamilton,' who came
to America for an education at the age of fifteen,
who persuaded King's College to let him take its
curriculum in less than the prescribed four years,
who left it to plunge into the popular discussions
at the outbreak of the war, effectively addressing
tumultuous public meetings and writing powerful
appeals; who was a captain of New York artillery
at nineteen, private secretary to George Washington at twenty, and at twenty-four the dashing soldier who led the assault on Cornwallis's
first redoubt before Yorktown. At twenty-five, as
a member of Congress, he did his best to restrain the unwise persecution of the defeated loyalists, and the discreditable repudiation of debts
'One of the best recent biographies of this great man is by a British
writer, Frederick Scott Oliver. Another popular biography is by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in the "American Statesmen Series," and a
recent work, The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, embodying some
new material, is by Hamilton's grandson, Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton,
of New York. Two other works which have enjoyed great popularity
are by Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, The Conqueror and A Feaw of Hamilton's Letters. Other material, possibly somewhat less impartial, is offered
in the Life by his son, John C. Hamilton, and in the same writer's History
of the Republic of the United States of America as traced in the Writings
of Alexander Hamilton and of his Contemporaries; and also in Reminiscences of Hamilton, by another son, James Alexander Hamilton.
1 L4     2




THE ULSTER SCOT
into which the victorious side were plunging. At
twenty-nine he was the controlling spirit in the
Annapolis Convention which prepared the way for
and called the Convention that next year secured
the "more perfect Union," and framed the Constitution of the United States. His thirtieth year
found him not the most conspicuous or talkative
member of that body, but easily the one wielding
the most influence in favor of a strong government, and realizing his more important ideals in
the historic document it framed-the first successful written Constitution for a great free government, the one that has lasted the longest and
achieved incomparably the highest results.
To draft such a Constitution had been a task of
the highest statesmanship. To secure its adoption
from jealous and jangling states which did not like
it, and did not care for the more complete Union
for which it provided, was a greater task and at
the outset even more hopeless; and in this Hamilton, now a young man of thirty, did the most
valuable work of his life. Always a leader of men,
he had carried the timid but singularly persuasive
Madison a long way in favor of a strong government in the Convention. He now enlisted him as
a most efficient aid in commending their plan to
the people. The result was a great book, published
first in short essays in the daily newspapers; then
collected into "The Federalist; ' and studied now,
after the lapse of more than a century, as still
one of the most vital and cogent presentations of
i 115 J




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
the principles of successful popular government
known to the literature of the world. The plan was
Hamilton's, and most of the work was his. Out of
eighty-five papers he wrote over fifty; Madison
perhaps twenty-five; John Jay a few.
So far as the Press could secure the adoption of
the new form of government," The Federalist" did
it. But there remained the need of personal influence in the doubtful states, and most of all, of a gallant and powerful popular leader to confront the
strenuous opposition of Clinton, the New York
forerunner of the modern " political boss." At the
outset, two-thirds of the New York Convention
and four-sevenths of the people were hostile to
the Constitution. After a six weeks' struggle, in
which Hamilton was the constant leader and made
a vehement closing speech, the head of Clinton's
forces rose and admitted that" Mr. Hamilton had
removed his objections." Even yet Clinton himself continued the struggle. At last Hamilton's
messengers brought news that Virginia had been
carried; and then New York, which began with a
hostile majority of thirty-five, ratified the Constitution by a majority of three. When Hamilton
returned from the Convention to his home, the
whole city hailed him as the victor, and met him
with music and flags and processions.
He was now thirty-one years of age. Only sixteen years more were left him; but in that time
he did two other things, on either of which alone
a great reputation might have securely rested. He
C 116 3




THE ULSTER SCOT
served in Washington's Cabinet as Secretary of
the Treasury. It was a period when the treasury
was empty, when repudiation of public and private
debts due in Great Britain discredited the new government in foreign eyes, while persecution of the
Tories lowered it both at home and abroad. Yet,
unhappily, this disastrous policy was not only popular, but support of it was held a proof of patriotism. Hamilton set his face against it like flint, and
soon gave check to repudiation and brought order
into the disordered finances. Furthermore,he gave
the new, unorganized Treasury Department the
organization which has served it ever since-making in it, as before in the Constitution, a provision
for the wants of a people of three millions, so well
devised that when they have grown to ninety millions it is still found adequate. Then this young
man, only thirty-eight even yet, whose life had
been spent in camps, in constitution-making, and
in the Cabinet, turned to the most exacting of the
professions, and in the remaining nine years conquered a place as a great lawyer, inferior to no
other in that nation of lawyers. At forty-seven he
fell in an unprovoked duel, without even aiming
at his antagonist.
If any man of his race, at home or abroad, has
a more varied record of loftier achievements, then
there is more reason than any of us have hitherto
realized for still greater pride in the land and in
the blood! I venture to rank this grandson of Alexander Hamilton, of Grange, in Ayrshire, and of
C 117 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
the eldest daughter of Sir Robert Pollock of that
ilk, as the foremost Scottish contribution to America, in that most critical and formative periodindeed, as the foremost contribution from any
part of the world.
James Wilson, a Scotsman,born at St. Andrews,
deserves always to be remembered in connection
with the constitutional part of the career just
described. He approached Hamilton himself as
closely as a great lawyer, the first legal scholar
of his time and place, and perhaps then the head
of the American bar, could approach one who, besides being a statesman ofcommanding and manysided ability, was a man of genius. Wilson was also
a signer of the Declaration, and a most useful and
influential member of the Convention that framed
the Constitution. In most cases, he gave his whole
influence with Hamilton and Madison against the
self-destructive plans of state sovereignty, and for
a strong government. When it was set up Washington put him on the bench of the Supreme Court
of the United States, where he remained in increasing usefulness till his death in 1798.
On that great court, as Washington first organized it, three of the four Associate Justices were
of the same blood, two Scots and one an Ulster
Scot.' When the first Chief Justice, John Jay, left
the bench, his successor, John Rutledge, was an
James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, and John Blair, of Virginia, Scots; John
Rutledge, of South Carolina, Ulster Scot.
C 118 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
Ulster Scot. Washington's first Cabinet contained
four members. Two of them were Scots and a third
was an Ulster Scot.' Among the first governors for
the new state governments set up by the colonies,
nine ( two-thirds ) were of either Scottish or UlsterScottish origin: George Clinton, of New York,
Thomas McKean, of Pennsylvania, William Livingston,of New Jersey,Patrick Henry,of Virginia,
John MacKinley, of Delaware, Richard Caswell,
of North Carolina, John Rutledge, of South Carolina, Archibald Bulloch, of Georgia, and Jonathan
Trumbull, of Connecticut.
The same tendency is marked throughout the list
of men who have filled the great office of President of the United States. Eleven out of the whole
twenty-five, nearly one-half, were of Scottish or
Ulster-Scottish origin. The ancestry of James Monroe is not wholly clear, but most of the authorities agree that his father was of what they call
Scottish Cavalier descent, from a family that emigrated to Virginia in 165o. Andrew Jackson was
born in South Carolina, two years after his parents,
Ulster Scots, had emigrated from Carrickfergus,
County Down. James K. Polk was the descendant
of Ulster Scots from County Londonderry, who
came to Maryland about 1690. James Buchanan
was the grandson of an Ulster-Scottish pair who
Alexander Hamilton, of New York, a Scot; Henry Knox, of Massachusetts, an Ulster Scot; and Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, who claimed
among his ancestors the Scottish Earls of Murray.
CI 119 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
came to Pennsylvania in 1783 from County Donegal. Andrew Johnson was the grandson of an
Ulster Scot who settled first in Pennsylvania and
then removed to North Carolina about 1750. General Ulysses S. Grant was, on the mother's side, a
descendant of Ulster Scots who settled in Pennsylvania about 1 763. Rutherford B. Hayes was the descendant of George Hayes, who emigrated from
Scotland to America about 168o. Chester Alan
Arthur was the grandson of Gavin MacArthur,
of Ballymena, County Antrim. Stephen Grover
Cleveland was, on the mother's side, an Ulster
Scot. Benjamin Harrison, among the greatest of
recent Presidents, came of one of the families most
conspicuous in America for high public service
through successive generations. He was, on the
father's side, of Cavalier origin, the grandson of a
President, and great-grandson of a signer of the
Declaration of Independence; on the mother's side
a descendant of an Ulster Scot named McDowell.
William McKinley was of Ulster-Scottish descent.
Theodore Roosevelt, on the father's side, is of
Dutch origin; on the mother's side, is a descendant of Alexander Bulloch, the Scottish first governor of the State of Georgia.
Of the twenty-five men whose names fill up this
shining roll of the American Presidency, nearly
one-half chose Secretaries of the Treasury of Scottish descent, and nearly one-third chose Secretaries of State of the same blood. In the Treasury,
besides the great figure of Alexander Hamilton,
C 120 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
we recall such men as Louis McLane, Thomas
Ewing, one of the foremost lawyers of the country, Thomas Corwin, the nearest rival to Henry
Clay as a popular orator, James Guthrie, and that
noble pair chosen by Lincoln, Salmon P. Chase,
of Ohio, and Hugh McCulloch, of Indiana. In the
State Department no names shine brighter than
the Scottish ones, from Edward Livingston and
John C. Calhoun to James G. Blaine, John Hay,
and Philander C. Knox. Of the new men who came
upon the stage in the second quarter of the Republic's existence, three were by common consent preeminent, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and
Henry Clay. One was Scottish, Daniel Webster,
whose ancestor, Thomas Webster, came to New
Hampshire in 1636; one was Ulster Scottish, John
C. Calhoun, whose grandfather, James Calhoun,
emigrated from Donegal to Pennsylvania in 1733;
and the third, Henry Clay, has been claimed as
Ulster Scottish by some writers, apparently only
on the presumptive evidence of birth in Virginia
in a region peopled by many Ulster Scots, and in
circumstances like theirs.
In all the historic achievements of Scotland, is
there any more remarkable than this conquest of
leadership in a new land by men half a century
behind other and strong races in entering upon
the scene? Still, like the rest of the world, Scotland
will have to take the bitter with the sweet. These
Scotsmen beyond the Atlantic were not always a
credit to their native land. Aside from the leaderC 121 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
ship they displayed, Scotland can prize no laurels
from the record of Captain Kidd, the pirate; or
of her sons from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who
in 1763 inaugurated lynch law in America;' or
of Callender, the professional libeller and blackmailer, who began yellow journalism in the United
States and took pay for persistently libelling, first
George Washington, then Alexander Hamilton,
then John Adams, and finally Thomas Jefferson.
It was of him that one of the most graphic of our
recent historians, McMaster, wrote: "As destitute 
of principle as of money, his talents, which were
not despicable, were ever up for sale. The question with him was never what he wrote, but what
he was to      be   paid for writing."2 With          all our
advances in civilization, perhaps that breed has
not yet entirely died out on either side of the Atlantic.
In America Scotsmen have not often figured as
leaders of lost causes; but the President of the
The first victims were six Iroquois Indians at Conestoga. A Paxtang citizen (Harrisburg was then called Paxtang) recognized among them the
Indian who had killed his own mother. The settlement was instantly attacked, six were killed, and fourteen escaped to Lancaster, where they
were sheltered in jail. Among them there was known to be another man
who had murdered certain relatives of a Paxtang citizen. A body of fifty
marched from Paxtang to Lancaster, broke into the jail, and killed every
Indian in it. See letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania from the captain
of the Pennsylvania Rangers and the Governor of Pennsylvania's proclamations; also Statement of Grievances, ColonialRecords of Pennsylvania,
vol. ix, pp. 138-145.
s John Bach McMaster: History of the Peopile of the United States, vol. ii,
p. 468.
C 122 3




THE ULSTER SCOT
Southern Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and his
Secretary of War, John C. Breckenridge, who
had just before the secession been Vice-President
of the United States, were of that blood. Another
leader in a cause that seemed lost, but ended first
in an independent nation, and then in peaceful
annexation to the United States, was Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, and first
representative of the State of Texas in the United
States Senate. In the Civil War, among many
leaders of Scottish descent on the Union side, the
names of Grant, McPherson, McDowell, McClellan, Gillmore, and Frank Blair will occur to all.
On the Confederate side were Joseph E. Johnston, one of our ablest soldiers; James Longstreet,
J. E. B. Stuart, and one more, to name whom is
enough to shed an undying lustre over the ranks
of the lost cause. It was another Presbyterian ruling elder:
"We see him now — the queer slouched hat,
Cocked o'er his eye askew;
The shrewd, dry smile; the speech so pat,
So calm, so blunt, so true;
The 'Blue-light Elder.'...
"Silence! Ground arms! Kneel all! Caps off!
Old Massa's going to pray.
Strangle the fool that dares to scoff:
Attention!-it's his way.
Appealing from his native sod,
In forma pauperis to God,
'Lay bare Thine arm! Stretch forth Thy rod.'
C 123 J




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
"He's in the saddle now. Fall in!
Steady! the whole brigade.
Hill's at the ford, cut off; we '11 win
His way out, ball and blade.
What matter if our shoes are worn?
What matter if our feet are torn?
Quick step we're with him before morn:
That's Stonewall Jackson's Way."
The antislavery movement which led to our Civil
War began among the Scottish and Ulster-Scottish immigrants; though not in New England. This
is a prevalent delusion, which the brilliant writers
of that region have not always discouraged. But
the real antislavery movement began among the
Scottish Covenanters (largely in South Carolina
and East Tennessee) twenty to thirty years before
there was any organized opposition to slavery elsewhere, even in Massachusetts. At the beginning of
the century the Rev. Dr. Alexander McLeod hesitated at accepting a call to the Covenanter congregation in Chambers Street, New York, because a
small Newburgh congregation was associated in the
call, some of whose members held slaves. Thereupon the Presbytery enacted that "henceforth no
slaveholder should be retained in their communion."' That was in November, 800oo. By 81 5 the
Covenanters, the Methodists, and the Quakers of
East Tennessee had eighteen emancipation societies. A few years later there were five or six in
'Centennial Celebration of First Reformed Presbyterian Church in the
City of New York: Sermon by the Pastor, the Rev. James Dallas Steele,
Ph.D., 1897.
1 124 7




THE ULSTER SCOT
Kentucky. By 1826 there were one hundred and
forty-three emancipation societies in the United
States, of which one hundred and three were in
the south, and as yet, so far as known, not one in
Massachusetts. As late as 1833, the gentlest and
sweetest of American antislavery poets, John G.
Whittier, the Quaker, was mobbed in Massachusetts for attempting to make an abolition speech.
John Rankin, the noted Covenanter antislavery
leader, said that it was safer in 1820 to make abolition speeches in Kentucky or Tennessee than at
the north; and William Lloyd Garrison wrote in
1833 that he was surrounded in Massachusetts by
contempt more bitter, prejudice more stubborn,
and apathy more frozen than among slaveholders
themselves.l
During the whole period, from the Revolution to
the Civil War,the indomitable Ulster Scots,chiefly
from Pennsylvania and the south, were pouring
over the Alleghenies,carrying with them the frontiers of the country, fighting the Indians and the
wild beasts, subduing and planting the wilderness,
westward to the Mississippi. Of this conquering
race, a President of the United States, William
McKinley, said:2
"The Scotch-Irishman comes of mighty stock —that
we know-descending from those who would fight, who
would die, but never surrender. Celt and Saxon are in
1Oliver Perry Temple: The Covenanter, Cavalier, and Puritan.
Proceedings Fifth Scotch-Irish Congress, Springfield, Ohio, 1893.
C 125 J




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
him combined, after each has been tempered and refined.
The Celt made his final stand as a racial individuality
in the extremities of Western Europe.... The blood of
the North Britons mingled with that of the Celt from the
Green Isle and with that of the ancient Pict. The result
of this commingling of blood and of local environment
was the Lowland Scot, even then possessing characteristics distinct from the Highlander and the Irish Celt.
The Lowlander recrossed the narrow sea to Ulster. His
going marked an epoch in the history of civilization.
The tragic history of Ireland has been for centuries food
for racial hate. In this land, at least, the irremediable past
should not be matter for quarrel.... To the Ulsterman
across the ocean, to the Celt south of him, each with his
virtues and his faults, I can but say, in the tender, pleading language of the venerable Gladstone: 'Let me entreat
you- and if it were with my latest breath I would
entreat you-to let the dead past bury its dead, to cast
behind you every recollection of bygone evils, and to cherish, to love, to sustain one another through all the vicissitudes of human affairs in the times that are to come.'
"As American citizens, the Scotch-Irish have ample
reason for pride. They were the first to proclaim for
freedom in these United States; even before Lexington,
Scotch-Irish blood had been shed in behalf of American
freedom; and the spirit of Patrick Henry animated the
Scotch-Irish to a man when the great clash came. 'In the
forefront of every battle was seen their burnished mail,
and in the gloomy rear of retreat was heard their voice
of constancy and courage.' Of no race or people can Milton's words be applied in juster eulogy: 'Inflamed with
the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred
up with high hope of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.' Next
C 126 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
to their intense patriotism, the distinguishing characteristics of the Scotch-Irish are their love of learning and of
religion. The Scotch-Irishman is the ideal educator, and
he is a natural theologian. It would be difficult to find
a college or university without a Scotch-Irishman upon
its Faculty. Another marked characteristic is the love
of home and family, and, wherever this prevails, there
are found manly virtue, and high integrity, and good
citizenship. The home and the schoolhouse have been
mighty forces, marking the progress of the Scotch-Irish
race. "
On the same subject another President of the
United States, Theodore Roosevelt, says in his
"Winning of the West: "
"Full credit has been awarded the Roundhead and the
Cavalier; nor have we been altogether blind to the deeds
of the Hollander and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if
we have wholly realized the importance of the part played
by that stern and virile people whose preachers taught the
creed of Knox and Calvin. These representatives of the
Covenanters were in the West almost what the Puritans
were in the North-east, and more than the Cavaliers
were in the South... They formed the kernel of the
distinctively and intensely American stock who were the
pioneers of our people in their march Westward."
And, finally, may I quote the briefer eulogy by
the most elaborate and painstaking American
historian of the Ulster Scots? He described them
as "that indomitable race whose pioneers, in unbroken ranks, from Champlain to Florida, formed
the advance guard of civilization in its progress to
C 127 J




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
the Mississippi, and first conquered, subdued and
planted the wilderness between." 1
Count, then, that enormous principality that lies
between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River as a Scottish conquest; and then turn
to more recent conquests by individual Scotsmen.
We have spoken of Robert Fulton, backed by
Chancellor Livingston, as the pioneer steamboat
builder. But there were two others, also of Scottish origin, in that field, William Henry and Joseph
Rumsey. The telegraph depends to-day, all over
the world, on the inventions of Joseph Henry and
S. F. B. Morse, both of Scottish origin. The telephone comes closer to Scotland still, for Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, while
Thomas A. Edison's mother, Mary Elliott, was
also of Scottish blood. So was Cyrus McCormick,
who brought the wheatfields of the United States
and Canada to British doors by the invention of his
reaper. To that great list might well be added the
man who built the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, Francis Fickett, of New York; and many of
the leading railway builders and operators, from
Strathcona and Mount Stephen, over the invisible
border in Canada, and their efficient ally in New
York, John S. Kennedy, to the managers of one of
the greatest of eastern railways,the Pennsylvania,
which has been almost continuously in the hands of
men of Scottish blood, Thomas A. Scott, J. N. McCharles A. Hanna: The Scotch-Irish (New York, 1902).
C 128 ]




THE ULSTER SCOT
Cullough,Jam es McCrea, Robert Pitcairn,Andrew
Carnegie, FrankThomson,and A.J. Cassatt. In the
same list may well be included great ironmasters,
from Grant, who built the first iron-furnace west
of the Alleghenies, and John Campbell, the Ohio
Scot, who first used the hot-blast in making pigiron, to Andrew Carnegie, in whose colossal operations the iron and steel manufacture seemed to
culminate.
If I have spoken lightly of one Scottish contribution as our first professional blackmailer, let me
hasten to add that the early fast printing-presses
were developed by Scott, Gordon, and Campbell;
that the fast stereotype process necessary to complete their usefulness came also from an inventor
of Scottish blood; that the first American newspaper, "The News-Letter," was published in Boston by John Campbell; that the first newspaper in
the great "territory northwest of the Ohio River"
was published at Cincinnati by William Maxwell;
that the first religious newspaper in that territory was also started by a Scotsman of Chillicothe;
and finally, that the two most noted editors in the
United States were James Gordon Bennett and
Horace Greeley, the one a Scot, the other an
Ulster Scot. One of them may be credited with
the conception of the modern newspaper as a universal news-gatherer, and the other, "our later
Franklin," as Whittier called him, with the most
efficient use ever made of it in America for the
popularization of noble political conceptions, their
C 129 ]




THE SCOT IN AMERICA AND
development in a triumphant political party, and
in the overthrow of human slavery.
Let me close with a mere reference to our leading humorist, the most loved of American authors.
Diplomacy knows him as one of our earlier Ministers to Spain. New York knows him best by
Diedrich Knickerbocker and Peter Stuyvesant and
the " Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He is stillremembered, even in the England of great writers and
of the richest literature of modern times, as the
author of the " Sketch Book " and of " Bracebridge
Hall." Washington Irving was born in New York,
a few years after his parents had arrived from Scotland. May I add one other name, that of our best
writer of short stories, and one of our most admired poets? Sir Edmund Bewley, of Dublin, has
shown,' conclusively as I think, that (contrary to
the prevalent American opinion) John Poe, the
great-grandfather of Edgar Allan Poe, instead of
being of Norman-French or Italian origin, was an
Ulster Scot, who emigrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from Dring, in County Cavan, about
1 78.
If these remarks, too tedious I fear, and yet quite
inadequate, have not entirely failed of their purpose, they must have shown how greatly Scotland's sons are responsible for the separation, for
the War of Independence, for the conquest of the
Mississippi Valley,for the Constitution, for the administration of the government,for the antislavery
1 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (January, 1907).
C 130 J




THE ULSTER SCOT
movement, and for the Civil War. A popular song
by Scotland's foremost poet was really our Declaration and our Constitution "writ large:"
"The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd, for a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That man to man the warld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that."
Since the times that have been under consideration we have grown into a nation of ninetymillions,
beyond comparison the largest body of Englishspeaking people in the world. We have not forgotten our origin or our obligations. In all parts
of the continental Republic hearts still turn fondly
to the old land, thrilling with pride in its past, and
hope, confident hope, for its future.


C 131 ]




I




TALLEYRAND








TALLEYRAND


C'tait un iersonnage Strange, redoute et consid&rable; il s'apfielait Charles Maurice de Perigord;
il 9tait noble comme Machiavel, firtre comme Gondi,
defroque comme Fouche, sfirituel comme Voltaire et
boiteux comme le diable. VICroR HUGO: Choses Vues.
rT   HE appearance of Talleyrand's memoirs has
been long awaited with much curiosity and
some alarm. Their author was believed to possess
more dangerous secrets of high importance than
any other man of his time; and whether or not he
had friends to reward, it was known that he had
many enemies to punish. When it was found that
he had forbidden the publication of his manuscripts
until thirty years after his death, the belief in their
compromising and dangerous character was confirmed; and when, after the lapse of the required
time, they were still withheld, they began to be
looked upon as a species of historical dynamite,
only to be exploded after everybody in danger had
been removed from the field of human activity.
But if this anticipation were disappointed-if it
were found that the old diplomatist had been thinking, as was his wont, of himself rather even than
of his enemies, and if his memoirs should not
teem with scandalous revelations concerning great
personages, it was still thought certain that they
would undertake to vindicate what had been portrayed by the French writers and statesmen as well
nigh the most scandalous career of the two centuries to which it belonged; and such a vindication,
1 135 1




TALLEYRAND
whether successful or not, would necessarily shed
a flood of light on some of the greatest transactions and some of the most extraordinary men of
modern times.
Whatever effect the memoirs may now have,
the place of their author in history has not hitherto been materially changed in the years that
have elapsed since his death. No revelations affecting French annals, from the days preceding the
Revolution of '89 down to the reign of the Citizen King, have diminished Talleyrand's share in
events or modified the accepted estimates of his
work and character. His career was —and it remains —unparalleled in modern Europe for length
and variety of distinguished service. Beginning
with Louis XVI, from whom he received his first
appointment, and from whom he went, later, with
a letter to the King of England, he served in all
eight known masters, not to reckon a great number of others who were, at one time or another,
said to have him secretly in their pay. He was
President of the Constituent Assembly which organized the French Revolution. He was sent to
London on a secret mission with a passport from
Danton. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs under
the Directory,under the Consulate, under the Empire, under Louis XVIII,and under Louis Philippe.
In diplomatic skill and success contemporary public opinion held him the first man of his period;
that is to say, for half a century the first man in
Europe. As to real influence on affairs, it is doubtC 136 J




TALLEYRAND
ful if any Minister since can be said to have exerted
more, with the exceptions only of Bismarck and
Cavour. Even they did not cover so wide a range
or deal with such a bewildering variety of negotiations, extending over so great a time and furthering the views of so many masters.
Sir Henry Bulwer has a phrase that, in a way,
measures him: "He was the most important man
in the Constituent Assembly after Mirabeau; and
the most important man in the Empire after Napoleon." But to gauge fairly his extraordinary
public life, it must be remembered that he held
place and gained in power for forty years after
Mirabeau's death; and that having been one of the
leading men of France before Napoleon was heard
of, he remained a Minister and an Ambassador of
France long afterNapoleon had eaten out his heart
at St. Helena.
Yet in spite of this amazing career, his countrymen have not been generally disposed to speak
well of him. Napoleon said of him, and to him, that
he was a silk stocking filled with filth. Carnot said:
"He brings with him all the vices of the old regime, without having been able to acquire any of
the virtues of the new one. He has no fixed principles; he changes them as he does his linen, and
takes them according to the wind of the day-a
philosopher, when philosophy is the mode; a republican now, because that is necessary in order to
become anything. To-morrow he will declare for
an absolute monarchy, if he can make anything
[ 137:




TALLEYRAND
out of it. I don't want him at any price." Mirabeau
called him "this vile, base trickster," and again
wrote: "It is dirt and money that he wants. For
money he has sold his honour and his friend. For
money he would sell his soul-and he would be
right; for he would be trading muck for gold."
The very member of the Assembly who secured
his recall from exile, Chenier, wrote of him: "This
letter of the Abbe Maurice proves to me that
after having been Anarchist and Orleanist, and not
having been Robespierrist only because Robespierre would n't have him, he has now become a
partisan of the Directory. This limp-foot, without
respect for his bishopric, is like a sponge, which
sucks up every liquid into which it is dropped,
but, unlike the sponge, he never gives anything
back. Here he is, recalled from exile yesterday,
and proposing proscriptions for to-morrow. If the
Directory wants blood, look out for your head;
Maurice will not refuse it."
Modern French writers, while of course less passionate, have been apt to agree in admitting his
extraordinary venality, his treachery to his chiefs,
and his lack of veracity.Lamartine admired him,
but Louis Blanc was as severe as the bitterest of
his contemporaries. Chateaubriand wrote of him,
"When Monsieur Talleyrand is not conspiring,
he is making corrupt bargains."' Guizot said he
was a man of the court and of diplomacy,-not of
government; that he was indifferent to means and," Quand Monsieur Talleyrand ne conspire pas, il trafique."
C 138 E




TALLEYRAND
to the end, almost indifferent provided he found in
it a personal success. And, to quote but one opinion not coming from his countrymen, Gouverneur
Morris said of him, " This man appears to me polished, cold, tricky, ambitious, and bad."
Few men, indeed, spoke well of him. Toward
the close of his life, when he was ambassador in
London, an attack was made upon him in the House
of Lords by the Marquis of Londonderry. The
Duke of Wellington offered a spirited defence. He
had held official relations with M. de Talleyrand in
most critical periods. Never had he encountered a
man more vigorous and skilful in protecting the
interests of his own country, or one more upright
and honorable in his attitude toward other countries. Talleyrand was found the next day reading
the report of this debate with tears in his eyes; and
he said to his visitor, "I am all the more grateful
to the Duke, since he is the one statesman in the
world who has ever spoken well of me."
Later, while the diplomatist, now a very old
man, was still in office, in the reign of Louis Philippe, Alexandre Salle published in Paris a volume,
undertaking to give an "impartial history of Talleyrand's political life." It bore upon its title-page
as a motto, a verse by Barthelemy,which may be
roughly rendered thus: "The incarnate lie, the
living perjury, Prince de Benevent; impenitent
Judas, anointed with the sacred oil, he opens his
career by betraying God himself.Alike at the altar
and at the Court, the double apostate treats the
C 139 J




TALLEYRAND
State as he treated the Church." The introduction
to this same work concludes with the story that
Louis XVIII, when asked to express his opinion
about his famous Foreign Minister,replied byquoting some lines of Corneille regarding Richelieu, of
which this is the substance: "He has done me too
much good that I should speak ill of him, and too
much harm that I should speak well of him."'
The evil in a public man's life is apt to attract
wider attention than the good, and certainly his
countrymen have made no exception to this rule
in Talleyrand's favor. Taking his career from their
records, what an extraordinary portrait is presented! Here are a few of the lines in it:
A profligate priest, who owed his start in life to
an ill-flavored joke about the immorality of Paris,
made in the drawing-room of Madame du Barry,
the king's favorite.
A bishop, who was forced into the public journals to explain that the money he had recently
made in gambling was not won in gamblinghouses, but in clubs; and that it was not so much
as reported-being only thirty thousand francs,
instead of six or seven hundred thousand.
A confidential friend of Mirabeau, yet accused
of poisoning him.
A Minister, and for years the intimate of Napoleon, yet suspected of a plot to assassinate him.
A great statesman, whose enormous and cona "In m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal,
II m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien."
C 140 3




TALLEYRAND
tinuous receipt of bribes from the beginning to the
end of his long career is unquestioned.
A trusted Minister of Foreign Affairs, who, while
in office under the Directory, thwarted their measures and plotted for the coup d'etat of Napoleon;
who, while in office under Napoleon, conspired with
the Emperor of Russia and Austria to defeat his
plans, and plotted for the return of the Bourbons;
who, while in office under Louis XVIII, schemed
for his overthrow, and for the accession of Louis
Philippe.
The Constituent Assembly forbade his return
to France. Pitt expelled him from England. Washington refused to receive him in America. The
Pope excommunicated him.
And yet he lived to be summoned back to France
and appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs for the
revolutionary government; lived to return to England as ambassador from France, with the prestige of the most distinguished living diplomatist, to
meet with a reception which could scarcely have
been more respectful if he had been a crowned
head; lived to give notice to the American Ministers Plenipotentiary in Paris that they must
buy peace or leave the country; lived to have the
Pope's excommunication withdrawn, and died in
the odor of sanctity, with his king at his bedside,
and the blessings of the Cardinal of Paris.
Many of the lineaments in this strange portrait
drawn by the French historians are not to be much
changed. There is little chance to erase the licenC 141 J




TALLEYRAND
tiousness, the treachery, the deceit, the monstrous
venality. In recalling them, however, it must always be remembered that he can be only fairly
judged by the standard of his time, which was lax
to a degree we can hardly comprehend, especially
with reference to the first of these vices and the
last. When the American Commissioners resented
Talleyrand's demand for a bribe of $25o,ooo for
himself, and a bigger one, called a loan, for the
Directory, his representative said na~ively, "Don't
you know that everything is bought in Paris? Do
you dream that you can get on with this government without paying your way?"
It must be further remembered, and to his
honor, that while he may be said to have betrayed
her rulers, he never betrayed France. On the contrary, when he was secretly thwarting his masters,
he was often helping his country. On notable occasions he rendered her service of incomparable
value, and almost saved her from destruction as
a first-class European power.
It was a touching eulogy pronounced on him at
his death in varying phrases by both Thiers and
Mignet, that he had always shown an aversion to
persecutions and violence, and that he had never
done harm to anybody. In the main this praise is deserved." But," exclaimed Sainte-Beuve, in protest,
"there are three points in his life which raise terrible doubts —the death of Mirabeau, the affair of
the Duc d'Enghien, the affair of Membreuil." This
last was the plot for the assassination of Napoleon.
C 142 j




TALLEYRAND
Talleyrand was perfectly aware of the shocking charges against himself in connection with
the death of Mirabeau, but he makes no reference
whatever to them in the portion of his memoirs
treating of that period. The fact that they were
believed at the time only shows the estimate then
placed on him by some of his contemporaries. On
the other hand, it must be said that many things
make the story improbable, and that the so-called
evidence is circumstantial and trivial. Napoleon
repeatedly, in conversation and in writing,charged
the murder of Duc d'Enghien to him. Talleyrand
devotes one chapter to repelling the accusation,
and fixing the responsibility for the crime on Napoleon himself. As to the plot to have Napoleon
assassinated, even Talleyrand's enemies must admit that, while some circumstances were certainly
suspicious, the proof of his complicity is fragmentary and not convincing.
No portrait of the man can be justwhich does not
relieve by many light touches the sombre colors
in which he has generally been depicted. He had
the uniform courtesy and dignity of the old regime.
He was the most accomplished of courtiers; the
most correct of masters of ceremonies. He spoke
well, and he wrote better —his few appearances
at the Academy being really events. In the brilliant salons of the Court circles before the Revolution, he was a social lion. Women always liked
and helped him. His witty sayings were the talk of
Paris. In prosperity he was not arrogant; in times
C 143 1




TALLEYRAND
of trouble he bore himself with unruffled dignity
and composure. When Napoleon denounced him
in the presence of others, for treachery and venality, he merely said, as he went down the staircase, "What a pity that so great a man should
have been so badly brought up." At another time,
when Napoleon, then First Consul, asked him
how he had become so rich (he was said to be
already worth thirty millions of francs), he replied, "Nothing could be more simple, General;
I bought Rentes the day before the 18th Brumaire (the day on which Napoleon seized power),
and I sold them the day after." He had taken office
under Louis XVIII, and was representing France at
the Congress of Vienna, when Napoleon suddenly
came back from Elba. He merely discovered that
his liver was a little out of order, and he must go
to Carlsbad. "The first duty of a diplomat," he
observed, "after a Congress, is to take care of his
liver." A few months later, after Waterloo, there
were fresh symptoms of trouble with the same
organ, while Louis XVIII regarded him askance;
but the moment he was reappointed Minister of
Foreign Affairs, all was well.
The evil Talleyrand did was chiefly to individuals. The good he did was to France. His public action in the Constituent Assembly was most
important, and in the main most judicious. The
French writers of that period,and even down to the
day of his death, habitually ascribed sinister motives to every act, and professed to find his hidden
E 144 J




TALLEYRAND
hand in many excesses of the Revolutionary party.
But he can be fairly judged now only by what he
is known to have done; and by that standard there
is no Frenchman who might not be proud of his
record in the Constituent Assembly. He was the
pioneer in the establishment of the metric system.
He opposed the issue of the assignats, and accurately foretold their end. He presented an elaborate and well-considered plan for the reform of
the finances, and the establishment of a sinking
fund. He urged the suppression of lotteries. He
presented in a comprehensive report and bill, a
judicious system of national education, including
a plan for the secularization of the schools. He
favored the policy of peace and alliance with
England. Bishop as he still was, he presented the
measure for selling the property of the clergy, and
thus secured for the almost bankrupt treasury of
Louis XVI two milliards of francs. He carried the
measure for abolishing the oppressive tithes of the
clergy. In effect, this representative of the old nobility of France showed himself among the earliest to recognize the inevitable changes, and loyally
endeavored to introduce reforms which would enable the monarchy to adapt itself to them without
too violent a wrench. As time went on, he became
convinced of the incapacity of the king to meet the
crisis. Thenceforward he went with the tide, but
strove rather to moderate and restrain it. The address to the people of France which the Assembly
chose him to prepare, breathed throughout a spirit
C 145 1




TALLEYRAND
of genuine and almost republican devotion to the
rights of man as we now understand them.
In other and widely differing occasions his
influence was exerted to promote peace, and to
discourage wars of mere ambition. He faithfully
warned Napoleon against his Spanish policy, and
fell into disgrace for a time through efforts to
thwart it. With that Spanish policy, the downfall of
Napoleon began. At Erfurt he protested against
the schemes of wanton attack upon Austria, and
even maintained private relations, and had nightly
interviews, with the Czar Alexander to keep him
from being led into them by Napoleon's importunities. At another stage in Napoleon's extraordinary
aggressions he protested, " I do not want to be the
torment of Europe." He lost his place in the cabinet
of Louis XVIII because that king would not tolerate his plans for an alliance with England. Later
on, he went to England as the ambassador of Louis
Philippe, and there negotiated the treaty of 1834,
which secured his country manyyears of peace and
prosperity. He rendered useful service at the Peace
of Amiens. At the Congress of Vienna his efforts
were directed to an English rather than to a Russian alliance, and for this Thiers and others have
criticised him,but the memoirs make an end of that
criticism. In the negotiations before and after the
" Hundred Days," Talleyrand is now seen to have
rendered his country one of the greatest services,
perhaps the greatest service, of his life. He may be
said, perhaps, to have saved her from dismemC 146 J




TALLEYRAND
berment, and certainlyto have preserved her great
place in Europe.
Two other acts of Talleyrand's in widely different fields may here be cited, out of many which
this generation should not allow to be forgotten:
He proposed under the Consulate a practical system of Civil Service for the Department of Foreign Affairs. He was only permitted to introduce it
in part, but his remarkable memorandum on the
subject can be read with profit to this day. He defended the liberty of the Press under Louis XVIII
against the tendency of the king and the court.
Twice, in the Chamber of Peers, in successive
years, he faced the reaction on this subject, and
exposed the fatal path on which the court party
wished to enter.
"Let us take for granted," he once said, "that
what has been held good and useful by all the
enlightened men of a country, without variation,
during a succession of years of various governments, is a necessity of the time. Such, gentlemen,
is the liberty of the Press.... I do not say that
governments ought to hasten to recognize these
new necessities. But when they have been recognized, to take back what was given, or —which
comes to the same thing —to suspend it indefinitely, that is a rashness which I, more than any
one else, hope may not bring a sad repentance to
those who have conceived the convenient but pitiful thought. You must never compromise the good
faith of a government. In our days it is not easy
C 147 ]




TALLEYRAND
to deceive for a long time. There is some one who
has more sense than Voltaire, more sense than
Bonaparte, more than any Director, more than
any Minister, past, present, or to come. That is
everybody. To undertake or even persist in a controversy, where all the world is interested against
you, is a fault; and to-day all political faults are
dangerous." Students of current American politics
are accustomed to the phrase," Everybody is wiser
than anybody." It may interest some of them to
note that Talleyrand said so, before the American
politicians.
The memoirs have been expected to clear up
some of the dark charges against him, and to do
much toward clarifying our views of that extraordinary epoch. They are sure to leave a better
impression as to the work of Talleyrand himself.
One of his most merciless critics, Sainte-Beuve,
writing in 1867 as to the anticipations then felt
concerning their publication, judiciously says: "I
am persuaded that everything to be found in the
letters and other writings of Talleyrand will give
one a more favorable idea of him. People of genius
like his never put the worst of their thoughts or
of their lives on paper."
What we find that he did put on paper proves
to be, and was intended by its author to be, as the
French say, a "serious book,"-meaning thereby
that whatever its variety of subjects or interest in
treatment, it is written throughout with a constant
view to a serious purpose. Whoever comes to it
C 148 ]




TALLEYRAND
for the entertainment which a man with such a
well-grounded reputation for wit and repartee
might easily have furnished- for anecdotes,amusing reminiscences of court incidents, and, in general, for the table-talk of the ruling classes during the momentous periods of which it treats, will
be disappointed. Whoever seeks details even of
the author's own life will be disappointed. The memoirs are obviously meant to be the elaborate vindication of a great career; not an autobiography,
nor a lively account of the author's times, not a collection of scandalous anecdotes, not even a series of
malicious revelations of state secrets to the hurt of
old enemies. Incidentally, some state secrets may
be revealed; as a means of vindication some of the
highest reputations are mercilessly assailed, and
certainly some of the most important occurrences
in the history of modern Europe are set in a new
light. But the one controlling aim of Prince Talleyrand was to elucidate and vindicate his own large
part in the events of his time.
He does it with a certain haughty dignity. He
apologizes for nothing. He conceives that he gave
to every government he served as much as he
received from it, and he goes far toward adducing
the proof. He narrates without passion, and reasons
generally on the high plane of the real interests of
his country, and the real interests of Europe,which
he declares were not antagonistic.
The great periods in Talleyrand's career were
the Constituent Assembly; the first years of his coC 149 J




TALLEYRAND
operation with Napoleon; the later years when he
resisted but was still able to influence Napoleon's
aggressions; the Congress of Vienna; and the last
mission to England. On the first of these, for reasons hereafter suggested, the memoirs give less
new information than was to be expected. Their
account of the resistance to Napoleon enhances the
estimate of Talleyrand's work at the epoch; and in
their story of the transactions at Vienna we see for
the first time in an adequate light, the great diplomatist at the height of his powers, and winning
his worthiest triumphs. He went to Vienna the representative of a prostrate nation, and of a throne
propped up by the bayonets of the army that had
conquered it. He found the victors apportioning the
spoil without reference to him, and without even
admitting him to their conferences. He had neither
physical power nor moral prestige behind him;
no great army; no established institutions; hardly
even a country; and the very instructions he bore
he had written himself. He stood alone against
Europe. And yet in a few months, by sheer force
of intellect and skill, he had divided the allies,
had secured the territorial integrity of his country,
had negotiated most useful alliances, had greatly
strengthened the French throne, had done something toward preventing the wanton partition of
other nationalities, and had put France again in a
leading position in Europe.
The popular idea was (in accordance with the
hint which he himself threw out), that he forbade
C 150 ]




TALLEYRAND
the publication of his manuscripts for so long a
period after his death because they compromised
too many reputations. It is quite as probable that
his sense of the generally hostile judgment of his
contemporaries, and particularly of his countrymen, was so keen that he wished to make his final
appeal on behalf of his own reputation to another
generation. On this theory of the purpose with
which they were written, these memoirs have an
interest from the points on which they are silent,
as well as from those they elucidate. What he could
not defend, or what he despised too much to care
to defend, he ignores.
On the subject of his early and constant receipt
of bribes there is a profound silence-in the first
two volumes, at least, to which alone this paper
refers. Yet his venality was so notorious and so
monstrous that Napoleon denounced him for it
again and again; details had repeatedly appeared
in specific cases, and statements had been published during his lifetime, undertaking to show the
various items and sources for his receipts of some
thirty millions of francs, acquired in a few years
of official life before the proclamation of the Empire.' It was a subject on which there was nothing
to be said, and the sagacious diplomat knew when
to say nothing.
But aside from Napoleon's charges, oral and
written, as well as from those of French politicians
and journals, which he perhaps thought he could
1In the life of Talleyrand by Louis Bastide, published in 1838, a few
C 151 J




TALLEYRAND
afford to ignore,there was one arraignment against
him for blackmail, so direct, detailed, and authoritative, that he might have been expected to offer
either an explanation, a denial, or a counter-attack.
This was the case set forth by the three American Commissioners and Ministers Plenipotentiary,
Messrs. Charles C. Pinckney, John Marshall, and
Elbridge Gerry, in a series of official dispatches to
months only after Talleyrand's death, the following table is given of his
receipts for three years:
Francs




From Portugal
From Austria, for the secret articles in the Convention
of Campo Formio in 1797
From Prussia, for having advised it of these articles,
and prevented their execution
From the Elector of Bavaria
From the King of Naples, as the price of recognizing his
neutrality
From the Pope
From the King of Sardinia
From the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in order that the
French troops should respect his territory
From the Cis-Alpine Republic, in order to obtain a new
agreement
From the Batavian Republic, for the same object
During the first six months of the Congress of Rastadt
For his share in the prizes made by French privateers
on neutral vessels
From the Prince de la Paix
From the Grand Vizier
From the Hanseatic cities
Net profits from speculations in French and foreign
funds during the negotiations of Lord Malmesbury
at Lille


1,200,000


1,000,000
1,000,000
500,000
500,000
150,000
300,000
500,000
1,000,000
1,200,000
1,800,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
500,000
500,000
1,500,000
14,650,000


To which should be added the enormous profits which he realized by his
operations on the Stock Exchange on the 18th Brumaire. The author adds
that all these details had been published in various works, and that
M. Talleyrand had never dared to refute or correct these figures.
C  152   J




TALLEYRAND
the Secretary of State of the United States, transmitted to Congress in special messages by John
Adams, then the President. In effect, Talleyrand,
as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Directory,
refused the Commissioners official recognition unless he could be assured that they would give him
personally a "gratification" of two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, and make a loan to the Directory of thirty-two millions of Dutch florins. He
kept them dancing attendance for months,and long
declined to take up their business at all,the demand
for the money being meantime often repeated. Mr.
Bellamy of Hamburg and Mr. Hautval, with one
or two others whose names have been preserved
in the State Department at Washington, but never
disclosed, acted at first as intermediaries.l They
presented the demands, orally and in writing, and
persistently argued the necessity for compliance.
They bore messages from Talleyrand, arranged
for meetings with him, and some of them accompanied the Commissioners to these meetings. Talleyrand himself repeated the demand for the loan,
exactly as they had presented it, and urged it with
the same arguments. He even put it in writing,
permitted one of the Commissioners to read it,
and then withdrew and burnt the manuscript. He
did not personally demand the "gratification" of
a quarter of a million dollars, but merely said, in
reply to Mr. Elbridge Gerry's remark that these
Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other Powers,
with Notes on the Negotiations, Government edition, p. 998.
C 153 




TALLEYRAND
seemed much the same financial views Mr. Bellamy had been urging, "that the information
Mr. Bellamy had given him was just, and might
always be relied on."' Mr. Bellamy was the one
who had been most pertinacious and explicit about
the " gratification," and he was present at this conversation. The American Commissioners, through
months of solicitation, sturdily refused the demands, and diplomatic relations between the two
countries were finally broken off. The President,
in communicating the last of the correspondence
to Congress, said, "I will never send another Minister to France without assurances that he will be
received, respected and honored as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation.2 The documents leave no moral doubt
of the story; they were printed in the volume
comprising the President's official communications to Congress, and had been before the world
for a quarter of a century when these memoirs
were completed. The absence of a line of reference
to them is as interesting in its way as anything
Prince Talleyrand could have said on the subject.
He spent many months in the United States
soon after the establishment of their independence,
in which France had aided, and while a revolution,
stimulated in part by the American example, was
in progress in his own land; but he found, in his
recollections of his American visit, almost nothing.lAmerican State Palpers, 1798-1803, vol. iv, p. 25.
Ibid., p. 137.
C 154 ]




TALLEYRAND
suggested by either event, and nothing concerning
the great man, then Chief Magistrate of the country which gave him hospitality. His lack of sympathy with republicanism, whether in the United
States or in France, explains the one; and General Washington's refusal to receive him explains
the other. Lord Lansdowne had given him a warm
letter of introduction to Washington, setting forth
that Talleyrand was really in exile because, although a bishop, he had desired to promote the
general freedom of worship, and eulogizing him
for having sacrificed his ambition in the Church
to his devotion to principle. Washington possibly
had his own views as to the extent to which Talleyrand's exile was due to his high religious principles. Hamilton's influence-always great-was
joined to Lord Lansdowne's eulogy; but both were
unavailing. The refusal to receive the French exile,
however, was quietly put upon political grounds.
To men of this time it seems that no part of
Talleyrand's life was more creditable or useful
than that spent in the Constituent Assembly. But
this scion of the old nobility of France had never
changed his real political views. He was always
a monarchist-in the Assembly, under the Directory, under Napoleon. He wished to assist
Louis XVI, until he became convinced that the
constitutional feebleness and obstinacy of that
monarch were beyond help. "The Ministers," he
says, " did not know that arbitrary power has no
right to punish with moderation those who resist
E 155 1




TALLEYRAND
it, and that by its very nature it is required either
to ignore or to crush its enemies." When he found
that the king would not attempt in season to act
upon such principles, Talleyrand abandoned the
monarchy, and took care of himself. But while he
went with the republican current, he was never
republican. He found, therefore, little satisfaction
in his honorable and brilliant record in the Constituent Assembly, and his account of it, in view of
its real importance, is meagre.
So he touches very lightly his extraordinary relations to the Church. But he takes pains to make
it clear that he was forced into the priesthood, and
that he never felt any real calling for his sacred
vocation. He is equally careful to show that in critical emergencies he had been able to do Rome
service, and that the feelings of the Pope toward
him were friendly.
The scandals of his private life as a priest and
bishop receive only sufficient allusion to indicate
his contempt for the subject. Thus his relations to
the Countess Flahaut were known, and a letter to
her had been published, in which, describing his
exercise of his sacred functions at the great ceremony of the National Oath, in the Champ de Mars,
he first hints at his own lack of religious faith,
and then says: " I hope you feel to what divinity I
yesterday addressed my prayers and my oath of
fidelity. You alone are the Supreme Being whom
I adore, and always will adore."The husband of the
Countess afterward lost his head on the guillotine;
C 156 2




TALLEYRAND
and the widow, in exile at Hamburg, was about
to contract another marriage, as Talleyrand, returning from his exile, came to the same place.
When she heard of his purpose she requested him
not to come, since she feared that his presence,
coupled with the stories of their former relations,
might embarrass her approaching marriage. The
old man of eighty puts this in his memoirs as an
amusing instance of feminine simplicity, and says
that, of course, he paid no attention to the request.
He goes on then to tell of meeting Madame de
Genlis again, and of finding her unchanged- the
same Madame de Genlis of whom in relation to
the Duc d'Orleans he had taken occasion to say in
his merciless portrait of that prince," Madame de
Genlis always surrendered early,to avoid scandal."
Talleyrand evidently cherished bitter memories
of his expulsion from England by Pitt, but he finds
it well to pass the subject with the slightest possible mention. Nor does he refer at all to the strange
letters he had previously sent his government, reporting that England was practically on the verge
of a revolution like that of France, analyzing the
inadequate military resources at hand to meet it,
and proposing a plan for a French invasion and
capture of Ireland. Eight days, he says, were sufficient to land sixty thousand men at twenty or
thirty different points. As a matter of prudence
they might perhaps go in the character of emigres,
so as to avoid arousing the suspicions of the government. A" Once masters of the principal ports,"
C 157 3




TALLEYRAND
he continued, "once with the English fleet in our
power, we can easily bring from France such reinforcements as are needed; and besides, as the
march of our troops will have been preceded by a
proclamation in the name of the sovereign people
of France, addressed to the sovereign people of
Great Britain and Ireland, as their faithful allies,
no doubt this country will be thrown into a revolution more prompt and more happy than that of
1688. The elements for a republic are riper in England than they were in France four years ago, and
it may take fewer weeks for England to accomplish this great and salutary change,than we spent
years." 1
With the gravest charge affecting his reputation as a public man, Talleyrand does deal at
length, but after his own fashion. He makes not
the slightest concealment of his efforts to thwart
the plans of his masters. He narrates them often
in detail, with entire simplicity and the utmost
directness. But the narrative always tends to show
that the course he pursued was in the interest of
France, and that the rulers he thwarted either did
not know that interest or wished to sacrifice it for
their own. Thus, after telling how he had secretly
labored with the Czar Alexander, at the Erfurt
Conference, to defeat Napoleon's plan for an alliance against Austria, and had succeeded, he calmly
says, "It is the last service I was able to render
to Europe while Napoleon continued to reign, and
'Letter of Talleyrand to Lebrun, dated October 10, 1792.
j 158 ]




TALLEYRAND
that was, in my opinion, a service rendered also
to him." There is nowhere a hint that in his mind
private and surreptitious conferences with the sovereigns of other countries to defeat the plans of
the sovereign whose representative and confidential adviser he was, had the slightest immoral
quality.
But he takes care to show Napoleon in a light
that must make the world rather rejoice at seeing
such a man betrayed. The memoirs scarcely touch
a critical point in the emperor's career without
dealing him a stab. They make him paltry in the
business of the divorce. They picture him as an
ignorant blusterer in the affairs of the Concordat.
They detail his cheap devices to gain the admirationof menof letters. They show with malicious precision how he laboriously copied out the draft of a
treaty whichTalleyrand had prepared for him, that
the Czar, finding it in the emperor's handwriting,
might think it was his own work. They preserve
his letter, complaining that the heir to the Spanish
throne wrote him as " My Cousin," and requiring
the Minister to instruct this prince of ancient royal
lineage that the only word proper for him to use
in addressing Napoleon was "Sire." They stoop
even to such trifles as his fretting, on the evening
of Austerlitz, over some gossip of a fancied slight
to him by the society of the Faubourg St. Germain.
Everywhere they paint him as heartless, vain, vulgar, wanton in attack, ungenerous and pitiless to
the defeated, untruthful, proud of his ability to deC 159 J




TALLEYRAND
ceive, wholly without principle, and without gratitude. And they do this, not so much by ascribing
to him these qualities, as by the careful and precise narration of incidents that exhibit them.
The inference which Prince Talleyrand expects
his readers to draw from all this is plain. It was
right, when in power, under such a man, to thwart
him when it seemed needful in the interest of
France. When this could no longer be done, it was
right to prepare the way for a Bourbon successor
-in the interest of France. When the restored
Bourbons did not meet his views, it was right to
plot for their displacement by the son of that Duc
d'Orleans whom he had painted as a brainless and
heartless monster-in the interest of France. In
other cases the suggested defence is always the
same; wherever he deceived her rulers, he did it all
for the good of France.
No doubt the plea will have force, especially
with his countrymen. Moralists indeed will regard
with surprise the claim that a Minister, though
holding on to his office, no longer owes personal
loyalty to his sovereign, when in his judgment the
sovereign is sacrificing the interests of his country
to his own. They will ask whether, even in such
great emergencies, the end can be admitted to
justify the means. Whatever the answer, Frenchmen, at any rate, and very possibly the world at
large, will have a kindlier feeling for the veteran
public servant who is able to show that, even at
such cost, he did in great crises serve his country.
C 160o 




TALLEYRAND
The memoirs will not change the world's verdict
on the profligate Abbe of Perigord and Bishop of
Autun. They will not lighten the censure on the
Foreign Minister who made merchandise of his
treaties, and became a millionaire on bribes. They
will not make the world think it honorable in
him to have deceived or betrayed in turn almost
every man under whom he held office. Nevertheless, they will heighten and broaden his fame. The
old man was wise, as usual, in making his appeal
to a later generation. He played a great part; and
as its proportions are revealed, the space for him
in the history of his times must be materially enlarged.


C 161 ]




I




BYRON








BYRON


T    HERE was a time when no English poet was
so popular as Byron, and so universally read
either in England or on the Continent. To borrow his own graphic phrase, he woke one morning
and found himself famous. Then there came a time
when no English poet was so odious. The disapproval aroused by his acts, his utterances, and what
the world thought it knew of his character, extended to his work. Men still read it, but often only
to dwell on the baleful brilliancy of the light that
had gone astray. The burst of amused contempt
in which Jeffrey (or Brougham for him) had torn
to pieces the callow poet-peer and his "Hours of
Idleness," seemed but a summer zephyr compared
with the storm which later beat upon this sudden
favorite, after he had triumphed in "Childe Harold" only to sink to the miasms of" Don Juan,"
"The Waltz," and their like. Other and nobler
work appeared, which compelled the world again
to readjust its estimate. At last, too soon, too sadly,
in exile, came Missolonghi, and the end. Once
more the pendulum of public approval swung to
and fro. When it finally settled-not very far from
a just medium-the century had passed its meridian, new tastes had developed, new men arisen,
and Byron was already relegated to the shelf of
authors who had been favorites-to the shelf
where we now range Scott and Wordsworth and
Coleridge, with their elders, Pope, Goldsmith,
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BYRON
Addison, and yet greater names,-men still to be
read on occasion, but no longer an intimate, essential part of the active literary life of the time.
We need not shut our eyes to the fact that these
changes were partly due to a frequent instinct of
the public to weigh the worth of Lord Byron's
verse by the worthlessness of his life. This last he
himself persisted in forcing upon the attention of
the public, and he seemed to take an impish, if not
insane, delight in making the worst of it. His habitual pose was worse than his real wickedness.
We may as well admit that his conduct was full of
faults,and that there was no verylong period in his
life when any decent society could have regarded
him as a desirable member. But he was never
as bad as he painted himself; there were always
people of refinement who clung to him; and against
his admitted delinquencies it is only charitable to
remember his lamentable heredity, physical misfortune, tortured nerves, precocious and phenomenally vehement affections, uncontrollable passions, exaggerated pride, as well as his loneliness
and his utter lack of early guidance.With these
admissions, and these offsets, it is as wise to close
that chapter. The flood of biographical speculation
as to just how bad he really was, is not profitable; and we may utterly ignore the gross stories
retailed by women, who knew enough to be in
better business, which first saw the light a third of
a century ago in an American magazine that was
then thought an expression of the country's culC 166 3




BYRON
ture. It puts a pleasanter taste in the mouth to recall
that he had the early recognition and held to the
end the kindly regard of that sweetest and bravest soul in British literature, Sir Walter Scott, as
well as the affection of Thomas Moore and Percy
Bysshe Shelley, and the lofty eulogium of Goethe
himself.
An American may be permitted a tenderer feeling toward the dethroned literary monarch than
is quite customary now in the land of his birth. We
do not forget his sympathy with our struggle for
the rights of Englishmen, or his quick recognition of our foremost man. I may cite here Childe
Harold's despairing question:
"Can freedom find no champion and no child
Such as Columbia saw arise when she
Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild,
Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roar
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no
such shore?"
And, again, we may recall the closing stanza of
his "Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte:"
"Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows
Nor despicable state?
Yes-one- the first- the last-the bestThe Cincinnatus of the West,
C 167 j




BYRON
Whom envy dared not hate,
Bequeathed the name of Washington
To make men blush there was but one!"
And still again:
"A higher title, or a loftier station,
Though they may make Corruption gape and stare,
Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's battles,
Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.
And such they are - and such they will be found:
Not so Leonidas and Washington,
Whose every battle-field is holy ground,
Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone. "
And, to select only one more example, when his
Greek enterprise was taking shape in his teeming
brain, it led to this significant entry in his Journal:
"To be the first man (not the Dictator), not the Sylla,
but the Washington or Aristides, the leader in talent and
truth, is to be next to the Divinity."
When we consider the nature of England, and
indeed when we consider the history of the nineteenth century, the reason why Lord Byron's
work and fame seem now less vital than they were
becomes plain enough. He was perpetually in revolt. His work is the literature of revolt, and for
the most part of unwise and unsuccessful revolt.
It was revolt against society; revolt against those
features of morality on which society sets up the
most exacting standard; revolt against his order;
revolt against theology if not against religion; and
C 168 J




BYRON
finally, revolt against many established opinions,
most established institutions, and against some established governments. Still his revolutions were
all failures. They were either too late or too early
-one or two may have been magnificent,but they
were not war. Rousseau did inspire a revolution;
Byron spent much of his time glorifying the disdain, the revenge, and the despair of baffled conspirators. And between the disdain and the despair
which were the favorite emotions of his heroes, depicted again and again until they became monotonous, he rarely failed to introduce the debauchery.
That critic pronounced a kind verdict who declared him." the favorite poet of all the most highminded conspirators and socialists of Continental
Europe for half a century."
Yet even in his worst moments of utter perversity, when eager to maintain his affected pose as
the most startlingly, sensationally, picturesquely
wicked of Englishmen, he passed in an instant to
strains of surpassing sweetness when he thought
of his daughter or his sister- to pictures of feminine charm and purity and grace which neither
English literature nor the classics of the world can
ever afford to lose from their immortal treasures.
Who does not know and sympathize with the
exclamation of the idolatrous parent?
"Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child,
Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,
And then we parted "- 
C 169 J




BYRON
Or who can fail to cherish that parent-poet's
picture of the hapless Bride of Abydos?
"Soft as the memory of buried love;
Pure as the prayer which Childhood wafts above;
Such was Zuleika, such around her shone
The nameless charms, unmarked by her alone -
The light of love, the purity of Grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,
And oh! that eye was in itself a soul."
Or who would not envy the Giaour the memory
he recalled in his last confession?
"She was a form of life and light,
That seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory.
"Yes, love indeed is life from heaven,
A spark of that immortal fire,
With Angels shared, by Allah given
To lift from earth our low desire."
Or who does not love recalling again and again
this dream from the "Hebrew Melodies"?
"She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
"The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent."
C 170 J




BYRON
But when we consider England again, or indeed
when we consider human nature within the range
of modern civilization, we see why even exquisite
passages like these, which without a doubt fairly revealed one side of the poet's nature, failed when the
first storm arose-perhaps still fail to earn general
forgiveness for Lord Byron. He addressed his greatest poem to his fair child, sole daughterof his house
and heart; but could not finish even that without
another attack upon her mother, or the boast that
"... a far hour shall wreak
The deep, prophetic fullness of this verse
And pile on human hearts the mountain of my curse."
He put in the same poem a tender and not unnatural address to his sister, with a longing for her
companionship. He even addressed its earlier cantos, in pure and graceful lines, to a child of eleven,
the daughter of a distinguished friend. And yet, in
this noblest of his works, the high-water mark of
his better powers, consecrated thus in the eyes of
the world to his daughter, his sister, and the child
of his friend, he could not forego soiling with an
occasional licentious touch, the stately and splendid display of a poetical genius hardly equalled in
the century.
Thedepths to which he fell, in some of hispoems
of the Venetian period, reveal with painful frankness the other side of his amazing literary character.Perhaps it is well enough depicted in his own
lines about Manfred:
C 17' ]




BYRON
"This should have been a noble creature; he
Hath all the energy which would have made
A goodly frame of glorious elements,
Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,
It is an awful chaos-light and darkness,
And mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts,
Mixed and contending, without end or order."
I shall not discuss the worst of his works. They
were never really popular with people whose approval he would have seriously valued; but they
were enormously read at the time. They have
long since ceased to enjoy even that lowest tribute which misdirected genius sometimes shares
with the vulgar output of the gutters. Still, even
yet they ought not to be introduced to collegians
save with the same warning Lady Caroline Lamb is
said to have written about their author after her
first meeting; they are "mad, bad and dangerous
to know." But they cannot be quite dismissed, even
with that apt summary. They are also witty to a
degree; full of sparkle and of abandon, extraordinary in their quick changes of mood, tone, subject,
and place; crowded with epigrams and stinging
with personal allusions. They seem bent on putting
the worst construction on everything and everybody, and then on finding the whole sorry pi6ture
-treachery, betrayal,hypocrisy,or shameless vice
-an equal matter for unrestrained amusement.
They try to prove nearly everybody as bad as he
constantly paints himself; and specially to seek consolation for his own matrimonial infelicity by conc 172 ]




BYRON
sidering marriage as a rule unhappy, most wives
wanton, and all men false. Their attacks on wellknown personages outrage most limitations that
gentlemen are expected to recognize; yet these
seem made, sometimes perhaps for revenge, but
more often for the mere fun of showing how outrageous he can be,or of annoying his family, members of his order, and former friends by exhibiting himself as the most unscrupulous madcap that
ever put a splendid brain to such uses. Then again
come flashes of magnanimous praise for old foes
like Jeffrey; and, more striking still, the warmest
and most grateful returns to every patient soul
that still showed him appreciation or kindness in
spite of his excesses. For the one extreme, we
may remember his frequent tone toward Southey
and Wordsworth; for the other, his sincere and
obviously heartfelt tributes to Sir Walter Scott,
to Thomas Moore, to Hobhouse, and especially to
Goethe.
Even at the worst, he would suddenly pass from
wearisome pages of mere degradation of his
powers to a lyric that will set the pulses of all men
throbbing while brave deeds are honored or liberty is loved. Take these disconnected lines from
one that still shines in its base surroundings - a
gem, in fact, that on the stretched forefinger of
all Time sparkles forever:
'"The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
C 173 J




BYRON
And, musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free.
"Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae!
"Place me on Sunium's marble steep,
Where nothing save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die;
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine! "
There has been some misdirected sympathy
wasted on the beginning of Lord Byron's career.
"The Hours of Idleness" was a thin production,
even for a clever lad of only eighteen; and the
stilted preface, with its exaggerated emphasis on
his youth, and its high-stepping parade of his
ancestors and his noble blood, contrasts absurdly
enough with his own real feelings in his black
moods, on the same subject. The " Edinburgh Review" might easily have ignored this first publication. But the game was too tempting, and the
"Review " really gave it only what it deserved. But
it also gave the confident and audacious young
man his opportunity, and taught him his strength.
The retort in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" was obviously modelled on Pope. It did not
C 174 




BYRON
equal that original, but for the occasion and for the
youth it was singularly and most unexpectedly
effective; and, from the day of its publication,
Lord Byron had literary immortality absolutely in
his own hands. Three years later ( when he was still
only twenty-four) the first part of the poem on
which his better fame rests was published, and six
years after that came its matchless climax. In the
same interval appeared most of the other works by
which his admirers prefer to remember him, though
one of the greatest was three years later still.
By then it had been burnt into his consciousness that he had " squandered his whole summer
while it still was May;" and with some tremendous effort, after the worst of the work in Venice
and the perverse publication of so much of it which
his friends resisted and deplored, he summoned
up all his powers, and gave to the world in that
memorable year of 821 (thethirty-thirdofhis age,
and practically the last of his valuable literary productivity ) one poem at least," Cain," which in sheer
power and majesty has not been surpassed since
Milton. Sir Walter Scott even declared that" Byron
had matched Milton on his own ground." But the
circumstances hardly permitted this to be an impartial verdict. If there were not other reasons for
demur, it would be enough to consider the sad sincerity of the great Puritan, and the frivolous affectations of the poet of the regency. The one in profound faith touched the noblest notes in the poetic
diapason with the exalted fervor belonging to his
1 175 ]




BYRON
theme. The other seemed to have no faith in God,
or man, or woman, or in himself. He put into the
mouth of our first mother as fearful a curse upon
the first murderer as ever chilled human veins:
"May the grass wither from thy feet! the woods
Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust
A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God! "
And then, in forwarding it to his publishers, he
described it in this flippant way: "There's as
pretty a piece of imprecation for you, when joined
to the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet
with in the course of your business. But don't forget
the addition of these three lines, which are clinchers to Eve's speech." Imagine John Milton sending Satan's speech in " Paradise Lost" to his publishers with such a message! As little was he like
our other and earlier literary divinity, Shakespeare.
That unchallenged master knew all moods, all
heights and depths of thehuman mind. Byron really
knew to the bottom only the extravagantly loving or the defiant and revengeful ones. His heroes
were generally haughty or cruel, wicked and false.
He fancied himself full of the noblest aspirations,
but in Morley's phrase,"the higher part of him
was constantly dragged down by the degrading
reminiscences of the brutishness of his youth."
Perhaps it might be as truthfully and more plainly
put by saying that he was a creature magnificently endowed in intellect, with many noble
instincts, but without a moral nature.
C 176 J




BYRON
All that prodigious talent could do, Byron did.
If only sincerity and some honest manly belief in
anything could have been added, that long,gloomy
list of astonishing achievements, "Cain," "Manfred," "The Corsair,"" Lara," "Mazeppa,"" Marino Faliero," would have been lifted to another
level, and some of them might, perhaps, have approached "matching Milton on his own ground."
As it is, the comparison seems almost like sacrilege. Lofty as is the tone of "Cain," majestic as
are many of its isolated passages, the reader ends
its perusal with a feeling that it has been all vague
and monstrous, that it leads nowhere, and that
it has dragged up again the awful, bewildering
problem of the existence of evil in the world,
only to make it appear more appalling than ever
-offering about it mere negations and complaint, without one ray of illuminating light.
"Manfred" is often as majestic, but more unsatisfying, and it keeps you wondering how far he deliberately wishes to have the reader at every turn
reminded of himself. In this respect "The Corsair" and "Lara," with all their splendor, breathe
throughout the same perplexity.
" Cain" was no doubt the fierce revolt which the
stern Scotch theology he was taught in his youth
wrought on such a rebellious and defiant nature.
An elderly gentleman, still living recently, in
Nottingham, cherished recollections of talk some
years ago with a lady much his senior, who often
told of having seen the young Byron limping down
E 177 1




BYRON
Fletcher Gate on Sunday mornings, on his way to
the High Pavement Chapel. The grandfather of another citizen is also one, I am told, who handed on
this significant fact in the poet's earliest residence
in the place. Now this High Pavement Chapel was
originally Presbyterian, though later, according
to Coleridge, who preached in it in 1796, it comprised Unitarians, Arians, and Trinitarians. Byron
found there a Presbyterian form of church government, united with great freedom of thought on religious matters. But the creed imposed upon the
impressionable child in the Scotch Presbyterian
church at Aberdeen is the creed against which the
whole mad, despairing but sublime'" Mystery"of
"Cain" is levelled, and to which so many wild
outbursts in his other works are to be referred.
His youthful life in Nottingham was marked,
according to local tradition, by two other interesting facts. He was tortured by a quack in ignorant efforts to cure his lameness; and taught by
an American refugee,from whom he may have imbibed other revolutionary ideas besides his estimate of Washington. He held this tutor long after,
at any rate, in the grateful memory which he was
apt to keep for all who ever rendered him a
kindness.
In most of Byron's poems that naturally classify
themselves in gloom and power with " Cain," one
figure constantly recurs. Sometimes
"There was a laughing Devil in his sneer,
That raised emotions both of rage and fear;
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BYRON
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope, withering, fled, and Mercy sigh'd farewell!"
At other times this figure was depicted merely as
"Lord of himself- that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds, to rob the heart within of rest."
Then again the figure soliloquized:
".. I have done men good,
And I have met with good, even among menBut this avail'd not: I have had my foes,
And none have baffled, many have fallen before meBut this avail'd not: Good or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all nameless hour."
Here is the most joyous strain in this strange
figure's whole wild creed:
"... if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong."
And here was a fact that seemed to give him comfort:
"He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath'd him crouched and dreaded
too.
Lone, wild and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt.": 179 1




BYRON
When one recurs often to the many passages like
these, and then to his equally frequent allusions
to the perversity of the British public in identifying the author with his creations, one would be led,
even now, merely on internal evidence, to suspect that such an identification was probably what
he desired. There need surely be no wonder that
when his works were pouring from the press, this
idea was nearly universal. He frankly abandoned
the effort at distinguishing between "Childe Harold" and himself in the preface to the last canto;
and it would puzzle some people to interpret the
comment in his Journal on the story Hobhouse
brought that he was his own hero in "The Corsair," and had actually been concerned himself in
piratical ventures, except on the theory that in a
moment of bad swagger he really wanted to put
about also that gross report.
And yet, in frequent and more natural moods,
this would-be misanthrope was really one of the
warmest-hearted of men. In his defence of the
Nottingham strikers he hit upon a phrase inspired
with the same nobility which marked Burke's
declaration that you cannot frame an indictment
against a whole nation. "Can you commit," exclaimed the Nottingham peer,-"can you commit a whole county to their own prisons?" When
he heard, years after, that a poor Italian was condemned to the stake "for having stolen a waferbox out of a church," he records that "Shelley and
I are of course up in arms against this piece of
C 180 ]




BYRON
piety. " His Continental influence fanned the revolutionary flame against the family, against religion,
against property; but he really had, himself, no
deep-seated wish to overthrow either-least of all
the last. He simply had not thought it out. Unlike
Rousseau, he did not realize whither his wild talk
tended. When a bereaved husband sent him a copy
of a written prayer for Lord Byron, found among
his wife's papers, instead of being enraged at the
intrusion and the offence to his supposed creed, the
poet wrote that he had read the prayer for himself with all the pleasure that can arise from so
melancholy a topic; that in the course of reading
the story of mankind he never met with anything
so unostentatiously beautiful; and that he "would
not exchange the prayer of the deceased in his
behalf for the united glory of Homer, Caesar, and
Napoleon, could such be accumulated upon a living head." He closed his singularly tender letter of
acknowledgment to his bereaved clerical correspondent with an appeal to be thought capable of
knowing and approving the better course, however
much the tendency to follow the worse one might
have been applied to his conduct.
Byron's fame would be better founded, if it did not
rest on so many works. Here, too, he approved
the better course, but held to the worse. In a
letter to his publisher he deliberately laid down the
proposition that a good long poem was impossible-he, the author of one poem in sixteen
C 181 ]




BYRON
cantos, of three poems of high importance in one
year, of two in another, and of six in the last year
of his really valuable literary activity. Murray had
written that half of the third and fourth cantos of
a certain work was very good. " You are wrong,"
was Lord Byron's answer, "for if it were, it would
be the finest poem in existence. Where is the poetry
of which one half is good? Is it the Aeneid? Is it
Milton's? Is it Dryden's? Is it any one's except
Pope's and Goldsmith's, of which all is good? If
one-half be good, what would you have more?
No-no; no poetry is generally good-only by fits
and starts —and you are lucky to get a sparkle
here and there. You might as well want a midnight all stars as rhyme all perfect." It must be
admitted that, in spite of his genius, his practice
sometimes conformed to his theory! A quarter of
a century later, and on another continent, another
man of irregular genius and lamentable life advanced substantially the same idea. "I hold," said
Edgar Allan Poe, "that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, 'a long poem' is
simply a flat contradiction in terms.... I would define in brief the poetry of words as 'The rhythmical creation of beauty.' Its sole arbiter is taste.
With the intellect or with the conscience it has
only collateral relations, and unless incidentally,
it has no concern whatever either with duty or
with truth."
With one part of this ghastly creed, Byron sometimes appeared in accord. His pen did at such times
C 182 J




BYRON
seem to have no concern whatever either withduty
or with truth. He abandoned his country and the
public duty to which he was born, as well as his
circle of private duties. He prefaced the first canto
of "Childe Harold" with a French extract to the
effect that "I hated my country. All the impertinences of divers peoples among whom I have lived
have reconciled me to it." He could even picture
his native land to foreign eyes as"... of those true sons the Mother,
Who butchered half the earth and bullied t'other."
And still there was no approval he so hungered
for as that of his old circle and his native land.
From the superb opening of the fourth canto in
"Childe Harold," the vision of " Venice sitting in
state, throned on her hundred isles," he turned
almost at once, as so often before, to his personal
griefs, but with this significant admission:
"I twine
My hopes of being remembered in my line
With my land's language."
He even came again to boast of his English birthright; and his dreams almost seemed to turn to
Westminster Abbey as his final home:
"Yet was I born where men are proud to be,
Not without cause; and should I leave behind
The inviolate island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,
Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
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BYRON
My spirit shall resume it —if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary...
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar
My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honour'd by the nations —let it beAnd light the laurels on a loftier head!"
Byron's real inspiration was apt to be personal or
political rather than poetic; and also apt to be invoked by some revolt against existing order. It is
pitiful to note how much even of his finest verse
is occupied with his family troubles and personal
griefs; with his firm determination to bear them in
silence, and with the melodious volubility in which
he continues, just the same, to pour them forthmeanwhile revelling in ridicule of the conventions
which he defies. In politics his very first appearance in the House of Lords was in a generous
and humane appeal for men in his own county,
engaged in a lawless strike which no one would
now justify, against the use of machinery in Nottingham industries. The earliest effect of his travel
was discontent with his country's course in Portugal. Then came hostility to the established order
in Italy, dissatisfaction with government in Spain,
hostility to Turkey and to Austria, and a resolute
effort to arouse the Greeks to resistance. In short,
to use the language in which he thought to describe his own principles,
"...plain, sworn, downright detestation
Of every despotism in every nation,"
C 184 J




BYRON
flamed out at every opportunity throughout his
work. His sympathies with Ireland led him into
wild outbursts against Castlereagh.With Greece
they carried him sometimes into bitter attacks on
Lord Elgin, for the crime of bringing the Elgin
marbles to the British Museum; oftener into stinging reproaches to the Greeks themselves; or into
inspiring confidence like this:
"For Freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!
Attest it many a deathless age!"
or, again, into enduring laments like this:
"A thousand years scarce serve to form a State;
An hour may lay it in the dust; and when
Can man its shattered splendour renovate,
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?
And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,
Land of lost gods and god-like men, art thou! "
But Greece was always the object for which he
kindled quickest. Many of his finest passages throb
with enthusiasm for her history and her art; with
love and hope for the land itself. He sustained the
cause of Modern Greece with his fortune as well
as his genius and his fame; and at last laid down
his life in a wild but nobly disinterested and generous effort in her service.
I have ventured to speak of "Childe Harold"
as the high-water mark of his genius. We should
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BYRON
lose much if no other work of Byron's was preserved, but his fame might rest securely on that
alone. In its splendid close Italy was largely its
field, and a hundred Italian gems in it will occur
to every student of the poet-the wonderful picture of Venice with which it opens; the apostrophe to " Rome, my country! city of the soul;" the
exquisite descriptions of natural scenery, as of Clitumnus, or of art, as of St. Peter's, or of the Venus
de Medici, "drunk with beauty;" the reflections
on the Imperial Mount:
"Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep-for here
There is such matter for all feeling;-Man!
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,
Ages and realms are crowded in this span."
The lot of Venice is whimsically described as
shameful to the nations, most of all to Albion:
"... the Ocean Queen should not
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall."
He hated Austria on account of her rule of Venice;
though Venice in her day was no less arbitrary.
But he lived there, and this, like nearly all his pet
national and other aversions, was purely personal
and illogical. He scorned Florence's rich tombs of
merchant dukes, while she was still without the
tomb of Dante; and went into a droll fury with
all French poetry, because a great French poet
wrote one depreciating line about Tasso:
C i86 ]




BYRON
"And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
No stain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth-monotony in wire!"
He made a charming reference to Marceau, who
was freedom's champion, and had kept the whiteness of his soul, so men o'er him wept, and his
mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes.
He could praise Voltaire, too, whose wit, like the
wind,"blew where it listed,laying all things prone,
-now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a
throne." But it enraged him that Napoleon should
be compared to Caesar-" a bastard Caesar," he
exclaimed. He felt constrained to add that Caesar
himself was "justly slain;" but followed with more
denunciation of Napoleon's reign of blood, with
the sudden burst, "Renew Thy rainbow, God,"
and the demand, " Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be? " Hatred of anything he thought tyranny, generous if undiscriminating sympathy with
the oppressed, shine, in fact, on every page. But
enough. Let me only add that a fitting climax to
the great poem comes in the unmatched passage
beginning
"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling place,"
and ending with the apostrophe to the ocean, of
which it is not too much to say that no more
splendid addition to English verse has been made,
from Byron's day to this.
The wild, often unreasoning love of liberty
which pulsates throughout his work, and was conC 187 J




BYRON
secrated in his death; and the enormous spiritual
force which this love of liberty and his genius gave
him throughout Europe, made him a social solvent, rather than a regenerator of society; a solvent
of stifling precedents and of arbitrary rules, rather
than an emancipator. Wherever his prodigious influence in that seething time extended, he unsettled things, but they have been the better since
for his activities. He helped start tendencies then
which, under wiser guidance, before the end of the
century had changed the face of Great Britain and
of Europe.
When all his sparkling froth and dull noisome
sediment have been rejected, we are still able to
hold up for admiration and instruction a body of
noble English verse, hardly surpassed, perhaps
hardly equalled, in the whole century whose dawn
he illuminated. It is verse, too, wherein the pretence utterly disappears that it must be without
relation to truth or duty, for it breathes the wider,
more humane truths to which the world began
growing up through the nineteenth century; it is
a bugle call to duty, and its strong, lasting note
is Liberty.
"Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
Thy trumpet voice, though broken down and dying,
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind:
The tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
But the sap lasts, -and still the seed we find
C 188 j




BYRON
Sown deep even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth."
That spring has come; his anticipations have been
more than realized. He builded better than he
knew when he set the solvent power of his verse
to weakening old conventions and so much of the
old political and social order. If we cannot credit
him with seeking or foreseeing the real results, we
must credit him at any rate with a brilliant share
in making them possible.


r i89 f




t
I,       I.,,.;     I,  .1.1      I.
I-  I v            I     I..
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I    I    I.    I,      I




AN EDITOR'S REFLECTIONS
I
JOURNALISM AS A CAREER




I




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER


HAVE been asked to say something of Journalism, and of schemes of special instruction
for it. The Chancellor and Faculty have had in
view, however, no absurd plan for turning raw
boys into trained editors by the easy process of
running over some new'curriculum. West Point
cannot make a soldier; and the University of the
City of New York cannot give us assurance of an
editor. But West Point can give the training, discipline, special knowledge, without which the born
soldier would find his best efforts crippled, and
with which men not born to military greatness
may still do valuable service. There were thousands of brave men around Toulon, but onlyNapoleon could handle the artillery. It was the scientific
training that gave his warlike genius its opportunity and its tools of victory. West Point does the
same for the countless Napoleons whom (according to the popular biographies) Providence has
been kind enough to send us; and this university
may yet do as much for the embryo Bryants and
Greeleys, Weeds and Raymonds, and Ritchies and
Hales, who are to transform American journalism into a profession, and emulate the laurels of
these earlier leaders, with larger opportunities, on
a wider stage, to more beneficent ends.
For journalism, chaotic, drifting, almost purposeless as it seems to-day, is but in the infancy
of its development. It was almost twelve hundred
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
years after Justinian before the lawyer fairly
wrested rule from the soldier. It is barely a century since "Junius," in the height of his conflict
with the lawyers, and especially with Lord Chief
Justice Mansfield, amended the famous maxim of
the great law commentator, and proclaimed, not
Blackstone's trial by jury, but the liberty of the
Press, " the Palladium of all the civil, political, and
religious rights of an Englishman." From his triumph we may fairly date-for good or ill-the
birth of genuine journalism. And how gigantic have
been the strides of its progress!-from the day of
Medleys, and Whig Examiners, and Flying Posts
and Observators, Middlesex Journals, and North
Britons, and Woodfall's Public Advertisers-all
as nearly forgotten now as they seem worthlessdown to the quarto sheet, crowded with yesterday's doings in all continents, and a record in some
shape or other of the most striking thought of the
whole world's thinkers, which you skimmed at
the breakfast-table, gave your spare half-hours to
throughout the day, and can hardly finish till tonight. Seeking mental repose after the excitements
of the day's work, you take for it the hour before
bedtime, and, with the final review of its columns,
read yourself again into quiet nerves.
In the largest library in America, the accomplished librarian, himself an old editor, will show
you long rows of the English papers of the last
century, and a little way into the century before
-dingy little quarto volumes, containing each a
C 194 j




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
whole year's issue, and, in the whole, scarcely so
much news as in this morning's "Herald." In Boston they will show you a number of " The Boston
News-Letter," about the size of some of our playhouse programmes, wherein is printed this proud
editorial announcement:
"'The undertaker of this News-Letter, in last January,
gave information that, after fourteen years' experience, it
was impossible, with half a sheet a week, to carry on all
the publick occurrences of Europe; to make up which
deficiency, and to render the news newer and more acceptable, he has since printed, every other week, a whole
sheet, whereby that which seemed old in the former halfsheet becomes new now by the sheet; which is easy to be
seen by any one who will be at the pains to trace back former years, and even this time twelve months. We were
then thirteen months behind with the foreign news, and
now we are less than five months; so that, by the sheet,
we have retrieved about eight months since January last,
and any one that has the News-Letter to January next
(life permitted) will be accommodated with all the news
from Europe needful to be known in these parts! "
It was in August, 1719, that the leading journal of
Boston thus vaunted its enterprise. Let us be just,
and admit that they have come, even in those parts,
to think it needful to be accommodated with a little
more news from Europe.
Nor was Boston singular. It has been common,
though rather absurd,to speak of Benjamin Franklin as the father of American journalism. Well,
here is his paper, "The Pennsylvania Gazette,"
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
after he had been at work enlarging and improving it for twelve years. Its entire weekly printed
surface is somewhat less than one-eighth of an
ordinary daily issue of " The New York World,"
or of" The Press," now published in the city from
which it was then issued; and of that, one-third
is surrendered to advertisements of runaway negroes, runaway Irishmen, Muscovado sugar, St.
Christopher's rum, and of a fresh import from Jamaica, and to be sold by Joseph Sims, at his house,
where Mr. George McCall, deceased, lived, of a
likely parcel of young negro boys and girls. But
its news is only three months old from London,
only eleven days old from Boston, and from New
York only three; and it is all neatly and clearly
presented.Yet when,at the bottom of the last page,
we come to the announcement, "Philadelphia:
Printed by B. Franklin, Postmaster, at the new
Printing Office, near the Market," we are constrained to admit that even in the remotest country districts we have many a postmaster-editor
now who has made material advances on the work
of King George's guardian of the mails in Philadelphia.
Between this dingy scrap of paper, or any journal published beforethe time of" Junius,"and firstclass journals of to-day the difference is worldwide. But the advance will go on.Never were journalists of the better class prouder of their power,
or more sensible of their deficiencies; never so
thoroughly convinced of the greatness of their call-: 196 j




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
ing, or so anxious to make themselves equal to its
ever expanding requirements. It is the fashion of
the times to berate our depraved ourneaiiLsm it
has been tiheTashionofi6ftIa times, since journalism
be gand,- every  — wit   rea         ere are
blackguards and blamaiers nowin pIentyu
they are fewer in proportion th-an they ever were
bef6reThreSe is intemperate denunciation now,
and mere personal abuse, and the fiercest partisan
intolerance; the newspapers are crude; the newspapers are shallow; the newspapers are coarse;
are unjust; are impertinent; they meddle in private affairs; they distort the news to suit their own
views; they wield their tremendous power to feed
fat private grudges; they are too often indebted,
as Sheridan said of an antagonist, to their memories for their jests, and to their imaginations for
their facts; they crave sensations that they may
turn a few extra, dirty pennies, and are reckless
of truth, so they can print a story that will become
the talk of the town;-charge all this, and more if
you will, and with certain reservations I will grant
it all. When Mr. Beecher had avowed his faith in
the advantages of having women speak in church,
and at the next prayer-meeting a prosy sister had
taken up all the time to no purpose, and at the next
had done the same, and at the next the same, and
at the fourth had been, if possible, more tedious
and oppressive than ever before, Mr. Beecher at
last rose, with solemn air, as she took her seat, and
observed, in argumentative tone, "Nevertheless,
C 197 




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
Brethren and Sisters, I believe in women speaking
in prayer-meeting!" Charge what you will, prove
what you will against the Press of New York today, nevertheless it is better in 1872 than it was in
1871; it was better in 1871 than it had ever been
since Manhattan Island was discovered; and,please
God, it will be better in 1873 and the years to come
than it ever was before! Te elder times were not
better than these; and the young men, cultured,
abland conscientloO    are entering theranks,
are resolved that the future times shall be worthy
of the larger opportunities that await them.
But is it worth while? We need not ignore the
fact that a good many cultivatepeople openly,
and  grjeatman ymore in secret, hold the development ofi    newspaper press a nuisance. When
good Dr. Rush made it a condition of his splendid
bequest that the library he enriched should never
admit those teachers of disjointed thinking, the
newspapers, he gave formal utterance to this faith.
Nor can we altogether deny the charge on which
it rests. The  ourna    a     taught disjointed
thinking. They have encouraged shallow thinking
anc Inaccurac     certain son e-Jlike Uliersal
receptiveness and forgetfulness. But you may say
-in less degree-the same thing of pamphlets,
ofquarter reviews, of cheap books, of any books
at al.T he monk who committed his Virgil to
memory, then rubbed it out, that on the restored
parchment he might inscribe the Institutes of
Origen, knew the half-dozen great poets or philoC 198 J




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
sophers or theologians of whose works the monastery library consisted, better than the average
scholar of to-day knows anything. Shall we therefore go back to the days of parchment and wipe out
our vast libraries, the accumulation of the centuries of disjointed thinking to which cheap printing
has given rise? Most true is the wise saying of
Thomas Fuller, that "Learning hath gained most
by those books whereby the printers have lost;"
and, refining upon this and upon Pope's well-worn
warning against the danger of shallow draughts,
some philosophers have sprung up-happily of
less weight here than abroad, though even here
numerous and influential-who pronounce, not
merely cheap newspapers, but cheap knowledge of
all kinds, the deplorable fountain of wild opinions,
levelling dogmas, discontent, and danger to the
country. But they may as well go further-as indeed some of them do. If the newspapers should,
therefore, be discouraged, so also should be their
twin brothers, the common schools. I do not deny
the vicious intellectual habits to which they may
give rise; I do not deny their shallowness, their
inaccuracy,their false logic, their false taste. I only
insist that whether you consider the common school
or the free press, faulty as each may be, it is a necessary concomitant of our civilization and our government; that it has been steadily growing better,
and that the best way to remedy the evils it works
is to make it better still. And for the rest, when
un-American Americans take up this sickly phiC 199 J




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
losophy of alien birth, and in the hoarse tones of
wornout European jeremiads, deplore cheap and
universal information, and the disjointed thinking
that results from it, let us, too, cross the ocean, and
confront them with the wise and manly words of
Lord Macaulay at the opening of the Edinburgh
Philosophical Institution:
"I must confess that the danger which alarms these
gentlemen never seemed to me very serious; and my reason is this: that I never could prevail on any person who
pronounced superficial knowledge a curse, and profound
knowledge a blessing, to tell me what was his standard
of profundity. The argument proceeds upon the supposition that there is some line between profound and
superficial knowledge, similar to that which separates
truth from falsehood. I know of no such line."
And so, with a contemptuous inquiry as to whether
the gentlemen who were so uneasy about the
spread of shallow information supposed that any
of their profoundest pundits knew then so much
in their own special departments as the smatterers
of the next generation would know, his Lordship
dismissed this cast-offfolly of older lands, wherein
some of our own aping scholars have made haste
to clothe themselves. It need give no further discouragement to the sincere and able men who,
drawn to journalism by the widening power it
already wields and the sure promise of its near future, seek to make it better. These are the young
men whose interest was so widely aroused by the
inaccurate report that Yale had resolved upon the
200o 




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
foundation of a school of journalism. They believe
that the force which is wresting the sceptre from
the profession of law should find form in a profession itself; and that with the larger influence
it bears should come ampler preparation.
But they have no faith in the efficacy of the
mere preparation. They know, though Mr. Emerson, when he wrote of "The London Times,"
was ignorant of it, that editors are born, not made.
They enter their protest against the dictum, the
other day, of one of the ablest of American critics,
that any person of average ability, who chooses
to turn his attention that way, can become a successful newspaper writer. They have seen that the
curse of journalism is the teh enicy ot  amanner
of fairntiegef    oung men, who areI at a loss
for present means of earning next week's boardbills, to ancy that the readiest way of paying them
ia^o relie    sme starving' newspaper with their
intellectual sustenance. The curse indeedspreads
widere. Amaannewho        seek recognition of
any sort, anywerer. to crow  into ournalism,
notas   rion, but as a stepping-stone. The
as — a,,.. -a...e..
men who are entering journalism now, andare to
control it ten years ience', mean to make it desirabIeassom ethi'ngseea a place to start from;
and they mean to make short work of the intruders who kanock.t it gaes with only that purpose.
In that droll episode in Dr. Johnson's life, wherein
he makes his marvellous appearance as a man of
business trying to settle his friend Thrale's estate,
C 201 ]




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
he signalizes himself as an advertiser. Wishing to
offer a brewery at auction, he announced that it
was not merely a beggarly lot of vats and kettles
he proposed to sell, but the potentiality of growing
rich, in a short time, beyond the dreams of avarice.
That is precisely the idea with which an undistinguished and detestable mob of aspirants bear down
on every leading newspaper office. They seek, not
the good of journalism, not a profession wherein
they can find honorable scope for their best faculties and the opening of a great career; but a beggarly lot of vats and kettles, of types and presses,
which may give the potentiality of growing rich
in a short time, beyond the dreams of avarice, and
from which they may then get away as soon as
possible.
Against all such the earnest and sincere young
journalists, who constitute the hope of the profession, will persistently set their faces. One of the
best results, indeed, of the proposed collegiate
training would be the fostering of a professional
feeling which would make such invasions disreputable. Physicians so despise the patent pill or bitters practitioner, that they make every purlieu of
their profession too hot to hold him. We shall come
in time to a similar esprit de corps. We shall not
then see, as now, the great apostle of the HalfBaked heralded to all the Lyceum Committees of
the country as the most brilliant of American journalists, when the gentleman's main use ofjournalism is as a means of advertising himself. There
1 202 ]




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
may be fewer zanies to gulp down the humbug
of the literary adventurer, whose sole distinction
is his devotion to the Gospel of Gush, or of the
other whose main claim to consideration is the skill
he has displayed in procuring celebration of himself, in letters to the country press, as the wonderful being who has organized half a dozen great
newspapers, written in each pretty much everything worth reading, and proved himself the ablest
writer that ever wielded an English goose-quill.
W     hetn the                L.iam..rgthyor
recogniz  scha              till abound but
there will be summary discipline for the quacks.
At the outset of any plans for professional trainiing, it is needful to recognize the imperative
limitations of the work. No school of iournais
howerer elaborate or successful, is going to make
editors; just as MrT"FackLards com.mercial college, with all the skill and fervor it commands,cannot make Stewarts and Claflins. Nr wilayuch
scQol funish the education which editors need.
That is an acuisiftn to  be gun in the best
academies and colle-eso-r t ihe country, and'to
be' Jeculousi- purs-uedi    all stfie of the
professional career. Neither will it undertake to
teach shorthand writing. That is something not at
all needful to an editor, unless he means to assume
also the duties of a reporter, and, at any rate, is
best learned by practice. No more will it teach typesetting. No man ought to be in authority about
a newspaper office who does not understand at
C 203 3




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
least the rudiments of typography; but for these
the best school is thecomposing-room. And,to pass
beyond these details, it will scarcely undertake to
teach men to write, though, Heaven knows, that
is sadly enough needed, as every busy editor, yet
weary with the work of putting the Hon. Elijah
Peony's card into presentable shape, or translating
the angry reply of Congressman Simpkins into
English, will testify. No man who has not served
an apprenticeship to it can imagine the hopeless
way in which many even of our best educated
men play havoc with their parts of speech, when
first turned loose in a printing-office; - while generally they add insult to injury by grumbling at
the proof-reader-of all men-for not knowing
what they wanted to write, when his business was
to see to it that the types printed what they did
write. The great need of newspapers, however is
not good writers, but good editors; and it is of
their possibletrafinig in a School of Journalism,
to e aended to te regular college course, as
one of the additional features of university instruction Ti-ke tie School or Mnes, Qr Medicine or
Lawht I speak.
Every editor, recalling what he has sought so
often, and so often in vain, in the selection of assistants, can readily suggest the outlines of the
work such a special or post-graduate course might
lay out for its students. Thus:
First. No man should think himself fit for journalism without some adequate knowledge of the
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history of political parties in this country. Does
some one say I am naming as the first study the
very thing all editors have at their fingers' ends?
Many doubtless have, though they learned it as
Fox said he learned oratory —at the expense of his
audiences. But how many know it with the thoroughness and accuracy needful for the instant and
intelligent discussions which every new phase of
politics demands? Go no further back than to the
revival of the one term argument. How many of
the thousand able editors from Maine to California who began one morning, on receipt of a dispatch from New York, to tell what they thought
of the principle, knew the history of Andrew Jackson's devotion to and desertion of it? Or of the
attitude of the Whig party toward it? Or of the
arguments for and against it in the time of the
Constitutional Convention? A great many, I hope;
but there was a plentiful lack of evidence of it, in
the way some of them assailed what they were
pleased to style a new and monstrous heresy. I
am not saying it was not a heresy, or that it was
not monstrous; but we should all have had more
respect for the judgment that held it so, if found
well-enough informed to avoid discoursing also of
its novelty. Yet the imperative demand of modern
journalism, and of the millions who support it, is,
that ifthe question be sprung upon the sore-pressed
writer at midnight, his paper shall next morning give it fair and intelligent discussion. It is not
enough that you should know where to find things,
r 205 j




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
which is about all colleges generally teach,-you
must know things, and know them at once. Some
one said of a distinguished editor, of such real ability that he can afford to laugh at the witty injustice: " He ought to belong to a Quarterly Review
or an Annual,-a Weekly is too sudden for him."
For the political writer on a great daily, nothing
must be too sudden,-no strategic combination
of parties, no specious platform that repudiates accepted dogmas, no professed revival of ancient
faith that is really the promulgation of new and
revolutionary heresy. Yet how find,and how,when
found, learn the facts? That is for the school that
shall undertake such work to determine. Perhaps
they might be partially presented in lectures. For
the rest, they must be sought in innumerable
statesmen's manuals, and political text-books, and
fragments of political biography, debates in Congress, abortive attempts at the historyof the United
States, newspaper files, volumes of election statistics, and all manner of other scattered material
for a great unwritten work-the greatest and
most splendid now awaiting that coming historian
who shall add Macaulay's brilliancy and Buckle's
philosophy to more than the industry Qf both.
Second. To this, no young man fitting himself
for journalism should fail to add a comprehensive
knowledge of the entire history of his own country, for which, fortunately, he will find the materials a little better digested and more accessible.
Third. With this should come an acquaintance
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
with the general history of the world. The history
of civilization, and of forms of government, of the
trials that have overtaken each, and of the source
from which its real perils came, of the development of diverse forms of civilization, and of the
causes that have aided, retarded, overthrown each
-the deductions of Guizot and De Tocqueville
and Buckle-the recitals of Motley, Grote, Gibbon, Froude, Kinglake-whatever tells how governments have borne the stress of unexpected
peril, and men have prospered, suffered, advanced,
or lost ground in this or that condition of rule,
will furnish invaluable guidance for any intelligent
discussion of to-day's problems of public affairs.
Fourth. It will not, I trust, startle too much the
faith of the average American that anybody can
edit a newspaper, to add, as another indispensable acquirement, a fair general knowledge of the
fundamental principles of common, constitutional,
and international law. Nothing, perhaps, could add
to the wisdom with which our Press has already
discussed, say the Alabama treaty, or the international obligations involved in the French arms question, or the problems of our reconstruction policy;
but that those who come after us may not fall below
the high standard thus set up, the more frequent
mastery of Blackstone, and Story, and Wheaton,
and similar convenient books of ready reference
in editorial offices, may prove an advantage.
Fifth. There is less occasion, perhaps, to insist
on the need of political economy, since of late there
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has been a singular revival of interest in such topics. But the subject is a large one, and he who has
supplanted Adam Smith and Bentham and Malthus with John Stuart Mill, and Say, and Bastiat,
has mastered Matthew Carey and Henry C. Carey, Greeley and Wayland and Bowen, will still
find the literature of the question expanding into
a thousand ramifications, and leading to kindred
studies as complex and imperative. To the newspaper reader, questions of banking and currency,
of the growth and management of national debts,
of the present insane recklessness of municipal
indebtedness, of taxation, of insurance, and the
like, perpetually present themselves; and he looks
to the editor for an elucidation of each that shall
be popular in form, yet fairly abreast of the latest
and best thought of the men who have made it
the study of their lives.
Sixth. From the weary plash of watery argumentation on these topics that carries us nowhere,
from the flabbiness of reasoning, and incoherence
of premise with conclusion, and general inconsequence, who shall deliver us? Might not a sixth
subject of the most careful study in a course of
training for journalistic work be fitly found in some
such essays on exact reasoning as should make
our popular writing conform a little to the severe
processes of logic?
Seventh. Even yet the modern languages are
not so firmly established in our common courses
of collegiate education as to make it reasonably
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
certain that the man of education, approaching
journalism without special preparation, will be sure
to have this essential part of a journalist's equipment. Year by year these languages grow more
nearly indispensable. The New York office without gentlemen on its staff reading at least French,
German, and Spanish, would be preposterous; and
hereafter the editor who enters his profession without a working knowledge of at least two of them
must expect to find himself perpetually crippled.
What reader of taste would not be glad if there
were less occasion to add and dwell upon the necessity of some knowledge of English? Richard Grant
White made magazine readers merry for months,
and many journalists angry for a much longer
time, over his irreverent descriptions of "'Newspaper English." Yet the fact remains that of the
average manuscripts received in almost any of
our New York dailies, from professional or semiprofessional writers, not more than one-half can
be safely put in type without previous careful revision for mere errors in grammar. To use the
right words and only enough of them, to say what
is meant so simply and directly that the sentence
goes like a bullet straight to its mark, and, having
said it, to stop,-that, alas! is the achievement of
scarcely one in three-score. To secure some approximation to it is the daily toil and tribulation of
every sore-tried office editor; the writer who fairly
reaches it has already made good his place beside
the foremost.
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
Eighth. The time is coming in our journalism
when books will be more generally reviewed,
not noticed; when paintings will be criticised and
estimated, not puffed or damned; when we shall
learn from our newspapers more of how the score
of the opera was rendered and its feeling interpreted, with perhaps less about the looks of the
prima donna or the clothes of the chorus; when
the new actor shall be judged by his worthy interpretation of high work,rather than praised because
his friends clamor for it. In all these directions, as
it seems to me, there has been immense progress
in the last decade. Book publishers have about quit
expecting the review of a book in a leading journal to bear proportion to the length of the advertisement. Artists comprehend that an invitation to
a studio reception is not necessarily followed by an
eulogium of all the works now on their easels, all
the others they have painted and sold, and all the
others still they mean to paint and want to sell.
I know something of the state of theatrical criticism in New York; and I do not know the reputable critic on a reputable journal whom any actor or
manager would dare approach with a mercenary
proposition. When the field is thus fairly open for
legitimate criticism, it is time that the principles of
criticism were more thoroughly studied.
And here this too prolix enumeration must end.
I have said nothing of that comprehensive study
of English Literature which every man of letters
begins in his teens and closes only with his life;
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
or of the wider acquaintance with the progress of
modern scientific and metaphysical thought which
our advancing journalism demands. Not to know
Darwin and McCosh, Herbert Spencer and Huxley, and "Ecce Homo," is as bad now as it was,
some years ago,to be ignorant of the Nueces or Rio
Grande boundary,or, a little longer since,to know
nothing of the national bank, and the removal of
the deposits. In effect, t  m  jonaL
what sill andpower he  y   velL ni      opt
Bacon s resolve andk tallk-aknoledge tbe his
province. No separate school is likely now, or soon,
to be founded for such acoulrse ti moire t han one
college or university beside that of the city of New
York has been considering whether such studies
-many of them already taught in some form or
other-might not be appropriately combined into
a special department, or a post-graduate course,
which would at least command as large attendance as many of those now enjoying the support
of our best institutions and the services of our
ripest scholars.
It will be objected that all this presupposes journalism for the highly educated few-not for the
masses. But who has not learned that the masses
are the acutest and most exacting critics? Even
your prima donna courtesies indeed to the proscenium boxes and the dress circle, but sings to the
top tier. "If I have made any success, whether
as author or editor," said the stone mason of Cromarty, the most fascinating scientific author of his
C 211 3




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
day, and the most successful editor in his country
for the last half century, " it has been by constantly
writing up to my audience-never writing down
to them." The hard-working mechanic, who looks
a second time at the four pennies which would almost pay his fare down town before spending them
for the morning paper, is apt to want his four
cents' worth, and very likely to know when he has
got it. He may not be able to analyze his opinions, but he knows, my friend of the quill, when
your article was written because you had something to say, and when because you wanted to furnish some copy; when you understand your subject, and when, in default of exact knowledge, you
are substituting rant for reason. He may be carried away now and again by a flaming sensation;
but, in the long run, he finds out the deception, and
does n't thank you for it*tIe inclines more and
more to buy the papers that deceive him the least,
and put him off the fewest times with their secondbest work. He does n't want fine writing, but he
wants the finest writing, that is the writing which
nobody notices, because it is the mere medium for
fine thinking.There is sometimes, especially among
unlettered and unsuccessful newspaper conductors, a fear of getting beyond their audiences. The
trouble is, their audiences are constantly getting
beyond them. We have noted the advancpiin joarnalism since Franklin 'sGazette' and "The Boston-e'ws-Letter. " But it has been as marked in
ability as in m ere bulk of news. Every decade
C 212 2




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
shows it, none perhaps more than the last. We talk
of0theood old times in New York jouriin s
and reverently call the roll of the workingworthies
6T' years ago — d ieaofami ousow..But the work
they haiveTetis not so varied, so complete, so
thorough ase work of to-cday. Take down the
oro.....  _...............,.
files at the Astor or Mercantile Library, and look
for yourselves. Yet as the grade of New York journalism has advanced, its influence has widened, its
circulation has quadrupled over and over, and its
pecuniary standing has been revolutionized. That
is what comes of writing up to your audience, and
it is what will always come of it.
Less preparation for journalism than has just
been suggested has of course once and again made
the largest success.tI do not depreciate self-made
journalists. Julius Caesar knew nothing of Jomini,
yet who thinks that a reason why the student of
war should be told that the study of Jomini is idle?
George Stephenson was the son of a fireman in a
colliery, and at the age of eighteen was unable to
read or write; but when Wall Street is considering what it shall pay for Union Pacific, or whether
it shall touch Northern Pacific, it does not search
among the ignorant lads in a colliery for the railway engineers whose judgment is to determine
the investments. Morse was a painter of indifferent
portraits; but when the Atlantic cable is laid, the
most skilful and scientific electricians are sought.
Journalism in America owes to three or four men,
who have risen from the printer's case, almost as
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
much as telegraphy to Morse, or railways to Stephenson,-in some of its greater relations they
have well-nigh discovered it; but its main advances, like advances everywhere else, are won
by the best preparation and the most honest work.
If there has been less of these, thus far, in our
Press, than men of thought and culture would have
wished, the profession has not been singular. One
of the most curious chapters in De Tocqueville's
great work on our institutions is that in which he
theorizes on the fact that in all classes and callings
in the United States are to be found so many ambitious men and so little lofty ambition. As the pervasive, continuous, and ever-increasing influence
of the Press extends, as preparation for it becomes
more general, as a sense of the responsibilities its
power imposes becomes deeper, as its ranks fill
with men better and better equipped for its work,
we may see, there at least, not perhaps fewer of
the petty ambitions the philosophic Frenchman
noted, but more of the lofty and honorable ambition, whose absence everywhere he deplored. It
will be an ambition to make journalism a field for
the ablest, to make its intelligence and its justice
commensurate with its power, to make it a profession for gentlemen to pursue, moralists to rejoice
in, and the Commonwealth to hold as a sure bulwark and high honor.
There are needed reforms in the profession,
which, under such influences, we may hope the
sooner to attain. First among these I reckon an
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
increasing sense of responsibility for the printed
word- thrown heedlessly from the weary pen at
midnight, but borne with the daybreak to the attention and confidence of fifty thousand homes, to
mend or mar some man's honest name. With this
will come an increasing sense of the wrong every
editor does the whole profession, who permits his
press to become the vehicle either for actual slander, or for that reckless trifling with character and
that invasion of personal concerns which make so
marked a feature of many of our most successful
newspapers. I look, indeed, for an absolute revolution in the attitude of the whole respectable Press
toward the laws against slander and libel. It has
been common to regard these as laws for the persecution of the Press, and such, a hundred years
ago, they certainly were. But to-day they ought
to be among the most valuable agencies for its
protection. I, for one, rejoice in the institution
of every libel suit for which there is the color of
justification; and count every fair conviction for
libel a gain to the cause of decent journalism. I do
not forget that the law of libel once allowed one of
Richard Hildreth's atrocious judges to sentence
the editor of "The Observator" to those public
floggings through the towns of western England
which Pope embalmed for infamy in the couplet:
" Earless on high stood unabashed Defoe,
And Tutchin, flagrant from the scourge below."
I do not forget the series of legal persecutions
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
and follies that made "Junius" a power as mysterious and awful as fate, took John Wilkes from
prison to make him Chamberlain of London, and
soiled ineffaceably the ermine of Mansfield. But
here and now we suffer from no such dangers. Instead, we lose standing and influence because our
liberty runs into license. Were every clear slander,
whereof correction on due application and proof
has been refused,remorselessly prosecuted to conviction and inexorable punishment,we should have
reason to canonize alike prosecutor and judge. No
higher service can be rendered journalism to-day
than by making it responsible for what it says,
and giving the humblest citizen whom its gigantic
power may purposely wrong, easy and cheap justice. Make libel suits easy; make them cheap and
speedy; let them lie only in cases where the publication was palpably malicious, or fair and prompt
correction was, on due application and proof, refused; then sustain them by a sentiment in the
profession which will, in turn, soon create a sentiment in the community-and you have done more
to make our Press cautious, and truthful, and just,
than all the oppressive libel laws of a century
ago ever did to harm it. My ownopinion is that
the r_  of New York, during some months past,
wuldba     leenvastly helped bya libel suit a day.
If the journal withw iic- m myself connected
came in for its share of them, so much the better.
It would be a deserved discipline, if we have done
any man a wrong and refused correction. It would
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
make easier the business of enforcing caution and
fair dealing on the hundred assistants whose several judgments must be more or less trusted in
making up every issue. It would give to every
word we did utter an additional weight, and it
would deprive the bad men we expose of their
present ready answer, " Oh, that does n't amount
to anything; the newspapers abuse everybody."
It is an ill day for journalism when people do
not care what the newspapers say against them. It
is an ill day for the country when people do care
and cannot get their wrongs redressed. It will be
better for both when justice is cheap and journalism is just.
Another reform, which we may fairly expect,
will be shown in a better comprehension of the
scope of the news, which is the life-blood of the
paper. It is possible to fill up the largest metropolitan sheet with a record of actual news which
shall be simply revolting; yet you shall go over it,
line by line, and put your finger on no paragraph
to which you can fairly object as not a part of the
news of the day. Led by its hand, you stroll the
world around, and gather every vice on Christian
ground. It is possible, again, to fill the same sheet
with another record of actual news, which shall
be simply respectable and unreadable; yet you
shall go over it, line by line, and put your finger
on no paragraph which does not convey genuine
information about the actual events of the day.
Once again, it is possible to fill the same sheet
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
with a record so compounded of that which most
freshly and widely interests your average constituency, that you shall have neglected no pressing topic of the times; shall have fairly given your
readers as minute a glance as their occupations
will permit, at the salient features of the world's
progress for the day; and yet shall have cast the
lights in your picture on what a gentleman wants
to see, and the shades on what he only sees because he must. Now the vicious newspaper pays,
and the only way to make the other kind stand
the competition is by making it equally interesting. Many a daily journal is loaded down with
such feculence that it should only be handled in
your homes with a pair of tongs, not because its
proprietor really prefers to minister to men's baser
instead of their better wants, but because he has
found the one way of making money, and has n't
yet hit on the other. It is easy to fill his columns
with prurient stories of crime from police courts;
it is harder to find men who can make the details
of politics, the wonders of our material development, the progress of thought, as readily and certainly interesting. But we shall get larger ideas of
news. We shall come to regard it as something
other than a daily chapter of accidents and crimes;
more even than a detail of public meetings, a history of legislation and the courts, a record of political intrigue at home and diplomatic complication
abroad. We shall come to embrace in it far more
generally and systematically every new and sigi 218 J




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
nificant fact affecting the social, political, intellectual, or moral movements of the world, and to
comprehend that this world is composed of two
sexes,the one demanding a recognition of its tastes
and wants as well as the other. We shall learn
to winnow the vast mass of facts which the mails
over all continents and the wires under all seas are
perpetually bearing to the newspaper doors. We
shall learn to reject the most of these as worthless or inconsequent; to adjust the perspective of
the rest more in accordance with their intrinsic importance, not their fuss; to divine what the public
want, and what they will want when they come to
know about it; and to give the whole with a completeness, a spirit, a verve, which shall make this
chronicle of the times as attractive as its themes
are absorbing.
With these larger capacities, we may hope, too,
for some of the sanctions of a profession. The
mere soldier, who ostentatiously carries his sword
to the side of the highest bidder, is despised. Not
all the genius, not all the excuses of Jomini could
save even his career from blight. Shall we accord
greater privileges to intellectual free lances? TVhr.
was a veal   eriod in our ournalistic developm eeeniha favor of 0Byron
and bad beerabout      prated of fair Bohemia,
and held it noble to believe nothing, but to write
likbe a believer foir in  that woud pay. But
the age of  r  ohemia is gone, and t e seedy,
disrAepiWta1BeBo  ms         superfluous  the
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
stage. Lawyers may still, in the worst spirit of
Lord Brougham's bad maxim, sell faith and honor
as well as intellect to their clients if they will,
but it is already reckoned a disgrace that a writer
should enforce upon the public a faith he is himself known to despise. "My friend never writes
what he does not conscientiously believe," said one
distinguished western journalist of another; "but
of all men living he has the greatest facility of
belief." The profession grows less fond of these
facile beliefs. The noisome weed of Bohemianism
is well-ih uprooted, and when it is, the Press
may better comman      s it will better deserve, the
services o i~gntIemen and m"men of letters.
Shall we ever see a Press that we can always
trust to tell the whole truth, without reference to
business considerations?" Of course not; and the
question is perpetually asked, as a conclusive demonstration of the worthlessness of newspapers, by
men who ought to know better. Do you know any
business man who tells the whole truth in his operations,irrespective of business considerations?-any
lawyer, any doctor, any statesman? Till that always promising, never performing race of longdelayed patriots appear, who are to publish great
newspapers for the mere advancement of truth, it
is probable that the poor papers we have will still
be issued by the mercenary owners with some sordid purpose of making money by them. But the
great newspapers are those which look for news,
not advertisements. With the news comes circulaC 220 3




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
tion, and when circulation demands, the advertisements seek the paper, not the paper the advertisements. Make your newspaper so good, so full of
news, so truthful, so able, that people must take it;
make its circulation so great that advertisers will
plead for the privilege of getting into it-those
seem to me the two great business commandments )
of our better journalism. When at last we get our /
feet planted on this solid ground, no newspaper
can afford to suppress or soften the truth in any
business interest. "The London Times" threw
away thirty thousand dollars a week in advertisements in the railway mania of 1845. It made money
by the loss. It could not have afforded not to throw
the money away, for it thereby vindicated its spirit
of honest dealing with its readers, in the eyes of
all Europe; and its readers were of infinitely more
consequence to it than its advertisers. This is precisely the view that your small business man would
never take; he would see nothing but the twenty
thousand dollars a week that could be had as easily
as not by only keeping quiet in the editorial columns; but great newspapers are neither built up
nor maintained by small business men. More and
more the trade of selling advertisements is getting
reduced to as plain a basis as the trade of selling
flour or potatoes, where the money paid over the
counter represents the exact selling price of the
article bought, and there is no dream of further
obligation on either side. By and by we shall see
all reputable journals stop depreciating their own
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
wares by admitting that it is necessary to call attention to an advertisement in the reading columns, to
get it seen; treat as preposterous the request that
there shall be some notice of theatre or lecture,
"just to accompanytheadvertisement,you know;"
take as an insult the suggestion that if an editorial
could be made speaking well of the capabilities of
a region and its need of a railroad, there would be
a heavy advertisement of railroad bonds; utterly
refuse, on whatever specious plea of public as well
as private interest, to suffer one line to appear as
reading-matter which the editor did not select because he thought it of more interest than any other
matter it might displace, and the paper did not
publish without a penny of pay. Some of these reforms, in the case of any but the strongest journals, will come slowly, for they amount to revolution; but come they will-not because publishers
will be more disinterested than now, but because,
looking to the rights of readers, their paramount
importance to the newspaper they support and
the imperative need of keeping faith with them,
publishers will see such reform to be sound business policy, and any other course to be business
quackery.
I have left myself no time to speak of some of
the problems of journalism that may soon come
up for settlement.
% Whetheras the fields over whichour enterprise
gleans keep ever expanding, we shall enlarge our
newspapers or condense our news; or, in other
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
words, whether people want their daily paper to
furnish them more matter, in more frequent triple
sheets, or regular twelve-page issues, or whether
they do not find it already taking up too much
time, and ask instead that it be judiciously edited
to smaller compass.
Whether the great metropolitan newspapers
are or are not in danger, in their eager pursuit and
elaborate presentment of important city news, of
impairing their value as the accredited records of
the larger news of the world.
Whether, as in the differentiation of journalism
class papers spring up, the great dailies shall keep
up the present competition, say in shipping news
with "The Journal of Commerce," in markets
with the pure commercial papers, in stock reports
with the technical journals of the street; and shall
extend their competition into yet other fields, as
in courts with the law reports and the official records, in railways and inventionswith the engineering journals, in insurance with the insurance journals, or whether technical details shall be abandoned almost entirely to the class papers, and only
what is likely to be of general interest to the
largest number retained.
Whether the further development of our journalism is to tend toward the French or English
pattern, toward reckless epigram and affairs of
society almost to the overshadowing and neglect
of the news, or toward stately essay writing and
dullish letters.: 223 2




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
Whether the Frenchfeuilleton can ever be engrafted on American journals.
Whether we might therewith secure a more
convenient shape for our papers; as, for example,
by taking Henry Watterson's suggestive idea of
an evening daily of the shape of "The Saturday
Review " or " The Nation," with its last six or eight
pages surrendered to advertisements set without
display, and this space made the most valuable and
attractive on the paper by keeping a serial story
from the pen of the best novelist money can command running on the lower half of each advertising page continuously.
Whether the new journalism will follow public
opinion or make it.
Whether a great paper can ever afford for any
considerable length of time to set itself deliberately
athwart what it knows to be the overwhelming
popular desire.
What are the inherent limitations of this gigantic power?
These, and many kindred topics, may still be
classed among the unsolved problems of journalism. On the solutions which the young men of the
profession give to some of them will largely rest
its future.
But above all these is the larger question,
whether they will not make an end of personal and
official journalism. Half the force of many a great
paper is nowconsumed in warding off attacks upon
its editor, or making attacks upon his antagonist,
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JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
which nowise concern the justice or acceptability
of the principles it advances. The public is invited
to a discussion of the political crisis, and is regaled
with an onslaught upon Editor Smith, because he
once supported a custom-house candidate, though
he now has the unblushing mendacity to stand
on a Tammany Republican platform; is asked to
consider the grave situation at the South, and is
met by a denunciation of Editor Jenkins,because his
partner made money by running cotton through
the blockade, or his brother-in-law had a wife's
nephew in the rebel army. This is not entertaining
to the reader, and is not profitable to the editor.
No man is so good as his preaching, and sound
discussion of public affairs will always get a fairer
hearing when no man's personality colors or compromises it. It has been a long time since the editors of our best papers paraded their names at the
head of the columns; if now they could keep their
existence absolutely out of sight, their papers
would carry double weight for every judicious article, or every sagacious stroke of policy. With our
Nestors of the Press, scarred in half a century of
its fights and crowned with many a grateful honor,
this is not possible. But with the younger generation it is; and in their hands American journalism will reach its most commanding influence
when it most nearly conceals its journalists. When
Sir Robert Peel retired from office, and wished to
thank the editor of "The Times" for the powerful support it had given his government, he could: 225 j




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
not learn the editor's name. The name is common
in men's mouths now, and the power has waned.
In Paris they get away as far as possible from
the habit of their sad island neighbors, and every
writer signs his leading article. But the average life
of a Paris newspaper is under a year, and a steady
journalistic influence in France seems an impossibility. They have plenty of editorial office-holders,
too; but the newspapers are worthless.
That charming book, Arthur Help's " Thoughts
upon Government," contains some words that deserve the profoundest attention of any young man
proposing to himself a future in newspapers. "If
any part of the Press," he says, " enters into close
alliance with any great political party, that part of
the Press loses much of its influence; for the public
desires the Press to represent its views and wishes,
and does not delight in manifest advocacy on behalf of political parties. Then comes the question,
what should be the relations between the Press
and the Government. Before all things, these relations should not be slavish on either side. They
should, if possible, be friendly, and, at any rate,
should be just."
I There at last we have it! Independent journalism! tahwo                   future in the
pro   aoneeas   ldmj~fice~hnts because the
truth would hurt the jpa   an end of one-sided
expositions  a because damaging things must only be
allowed arainst our ant&gonists; an end of assaults
that are not believed fullv iust but must be made: 226 6




JOURNALISM AS A CAREER
because te exiienc- ofrtyarfare    demands
them; an end of slanders that are known to be
slanders,-itiit must not be exploded because it
wouiiad hurt-t f'paty; an end of hesitation to print
the news in a newspaper because it may hurt the
party; an end of doctoring the reports of public
opinioniin South Carolina and Alaska because the
honest story of the feeling there might hurt the
party; an end of all half-truths and hesitated lies;
an end of public contempt forthe voice that barks
only apprval to Sir Oracle, and through all the
busy marts of trade and amusement and learning
and irelio  teps ever barking only this:
"I am His Highness's dog at Kew:
Praiytelln e, Sir, whose dog are you;"
an end,as Emerson has taught us the happy phrase,
at once of official and officinal journalism-that is
the boon which to every perplexed conscientious
member of the profession a new and beneficent
Declaration of Independence affords.Under it journalism expands in a balanced and unfettered development; ceases to be one-sided in its views, and
to be distrusted, even in its facts; becomes the
master, not the tool, of party; tells the whole truth;
commands the general confidence; ceases to be
the advocate, rises to be the judge. To that passionless ether we may not from these partisan
struggles soon ascend; but if not the near, it is at
least the certain future of successful and honored
journalism.: 227 J








AN EDITOR'S REFLECTIONS
II
THE PRACTICAL ISSUES IN
A NEWSPAPER OFFICE




I




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES IN
A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
VERY now and then some Magnus Apollo
jj~ of an earlier day returns to our profession.
We all give him most respectful salutation; felicitate ourselves on the great gain we shall have from
his experience, judgment, skill; and wait. Regularly, decisively, and at the outset, he fails. The
reason of this monotonous disappointment has
come to be recognized. The business of making
a newspaper is in a state of constant growth and
change. You might almost say that it is revolutionized once every ten years. The veteran returns to
find the old methods useless, the old weapons out
of date, the old plans of action out of relation to the
present arrangement of the forces. Nor is this to
be thought in the least unnatural. Abolish the old
forms of procedure; adopt an entirely new code, as
our Albany pests are perpetually proposing; and
Charles O'Conor, returning to the profession of
which he was so long an ornament and glory, and
attempting his own office business, might break
down in a police court, under the onset of a Tombs
shyster.
No doubt there is progress in the other professions, too; at least we helpless victims of the
lawyer and the doctor hope so. But these absolute
revolutions have, in this century, been the distinctive mark of our own. The cylinder press made
one. Before that the circulation of a daily news1  231:




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
paper was imperatively limited by the number of
pulls one pair of arms could give a Washington
press within the hour or two which shut in the
life, for publication purposes, of any day's news.
Four hundred was large, a thousand enormous, beyond fifteen hundred an impossibility. The railroads
made another revolution. They doubled, trebled,
quadrupled the area of circulation. The fast printing-press made another. It is not too much to say
that one man, still going about the streets of New
York, modest, genial, busy on new notions, gave
a new birth to the journalism not merely of his
own country but of the world. When Richard M.
Hoe showed how types could be placed on a revolving cylinder instead of a flat bed, he did as much
for the profession that now rules the world as the
inventor of gunpowder did for the one that ruled
it last. From that moment came the possibility of
addressing millions, at the instant of their readiest
attention, from a single desk, within a single hour,
on the events of the hour.
And now came another revolution as startling as
any. The conduct of newspapers ceased to be the
work of journeymen printers, of propagandists,
needy politicians, starveling lawyers, or adventurers. Its new developments compelled the use of
large capital, and thus the modern metropolitan
daily journal became a great business enterprise,
as legitimate as a railroad or a line of steamships,
and as rigidly demanding the best business management. Thus stimulated, its growth again outran
C 232 ]




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
its facilities. No printing-press ever devised could
print in the required time as many newspapers
as there were eager buyers. The discovery of a
way to stereotype the whole paper in half an hour,
and thus put as many presses as you needed at
work on the same paper at the same time, solved
that difficulty, and the business underwent another
change amounting to revolution. Then came the
enormous extension of telegraph lines and ocean
cables. The old-fashioned letter-writer was almost
abolished. The Washington correspondence came
by telegraph. The account of a great battle fought
yesterday east of Paris was read in detail this morning in New York.The journalist, at one leap, took
the whole world for his province every morning.
With each of these revolutions the sphere of the
daily newspaper has broadened. It has commanded
wider and more varied ability. It has been able to
draft talent from any quarter, to command the
best business sagacity, unlimited capital, the widest
enterprise. As the result of all this we see
Daily papers that sell you every morning, for
three or four pennies, matter equalling the contents of a thick book, often procured at a cost
tenfold, a hundredfold what the book's contents
cost;
Papers that add to this mass of information as
many, sometimes twice or three times as many,
pages of advertisements, on everyconceivablesubject, classified and indexed;
Papers that give you yesterday's news, from
C 233 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
every quarter of the habitable globe, and on every
conceivable subject,-the downfall of an empire,
the conclusions of a European conference, the result of a horse-race, the verdict of a Presbytery,
the secret proceedings of a hermetically sealed
caucus, the robbing of Patrick O'Donovan's till, the
game of baseball some college boys have played,
what Edison thinks he is going to discover, what
the Leadville enthusiasts say they have discovered,
and a veto message from the President-an infinite variety of things worthy and worthless;
And, finally, daily papers that give you all this
with such multiplicity of detail, and in such masses
that, unless from morn till dewy eve you give your
whole time to it, you cannot read them through.
To that complexion have these successive and
rapid revolutions in journalism brought us. What
is to be the next great change? Will the growth
in the size of our papers continue, so as to make
room for increasing advertisements and yet wider
and fuller news? Or shall we presently find the
greatest newspapers too big already and too
crowded with news to admit any advertisements
at all? Shall we have cheaper papers? Shall we increase the quantity or the variety of news we print
in anything like the ratio of the last decade?
Certainly there must be great changes in the matter
of advertising. I doubt if,in most cases, the volume
is to be much increased, and in some it is pretty
sure to be diminished. The business of issuing supE 234 J




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
plemental sheets to carry off the surplus of advertising is self-limited, and in some cases it is already
carried on at a loss. You issue a paper of a certain
grade at, let us say, four cents, and you so adjust
your scale of expenditure that your receipts on the
circulation of so many copies will about balance it,
leaving the advertisements to furnish the profit.
But you fill the paper with news, and crowd these
advertisements into an extra sheet. Here now
enters another element in your problem. Your advertisements can no longer be counted as profit,
because out of them must first be paid the cost for
the extra paper on which they are printed. Your
circulation is necessarily large, or you could not
depend on it to pay the expenses of procuring the
news and making the paper. But the larger it is,
the larger becomes the drain for the extra paper on
which you now print your advertisements. With
a circulation of fifty thousandthe cost of this paper
might be taken from the gross receipts for advertising and still leave you a handsome margin
for profits. Double the circulation, and you have
doubled the cost of your extra paper for printing
the same number of advertisements; yet you sell
the two sheets at the same four cents for which
you once sold the one. This may leave the margin
on the wrong side.
A few actual figures may make it plainer. You
undertake to furnish an eight-page newspaper for
four cents. As the circulation increases, and the
business management learns to take advantage of
_ 235 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
it, the advertisements flow in and crowd out the
news. Your readers would resent this, and your
rivals would have you at a disadvantage. Either
you must raise the price of the advertising so as
to get the same revenue from a smaller amount of
it, and exclude the rest, or you must carry it off
in an extra sheet for which you will receive no
extra pay, and the entire cost of which must be
deducted from the profit you rightfully expect on
your advertisements.With the present system of
fast printing-presses, you can make this sheet onequarter, one-half, or the whole size of the regular
issue, but one of these three it must be. Suppose
you content yourself with a supplement one-fourth
the size of the regular issue. This gives you two
pages, and, at a low but safe estimate, one thousand paying lines of advertising to the page. Now,
say you print and give away with the regular issue
one hundred thousand of this supplemental sheet.
Your white paper for it costs you $250. Your agate
composition for it costs you $5o more. You have
made an outlay of $300 in order to print two thousand lines of advertising. How much must you
get for that advertising to repay you the actual
outlay? A moment's figuring brings you the approximate price of fifteen cents per line. Recollect, this involves no profit. It does not even meet
the expenses, for I have counted the bare cost of
the white paper, the composition, and the proofreading. There are a thousand and one incidentals, the receiving of the advertisements, the transC 236 J




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
mission, collections, waste paper, extra postage,
extra press-work, extra cost in mailing, etc. Does
it take much study to show that these advertisements must bring a good price, or the publication
of them must be continued for purely philanthropic
purposes, and at a loss? Yet there are newspapers
which print them for nothing, and there are others,
of great circulation, too, which print many of them
at five cents a line. Years ago the younger Bennett said to me, "The growth of this advertising
troubles me. Whole columns of it I print now at
a loss, and I would gladly throw part of it out, if it
were not that some of you fellows would pick itup. "
Of course, one point must not be lost sight
of. There is a certain element of news in some of
this advertising, and that newspaper is more welcome to some of its readers which has a moderate
amount and variety of it. But one question must
be settled before deciding to publish it at a loss
or to publish it for nothing. Is this the most interesting news with which this space can be filled?
Will this cause more readers to buy the paper than
anything else we could get to put in its place?
The upshot of it all seems to be that, in the long
run, cheap advertising must seek cheap mediums.
The paper of the largest circulation cannot afford
to cultivate it. The advertisers most likely to afford
appearing in the great newspapers of the future
will be those appealing to large classes, and able,
therefore, to pay for the widest publicity. The
chambermaid that wants a place at $15 a month
E 237 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
cannot long afford to ask one hundred thousand
readers for it. She can better go to an employment
agency. The man who has a horse to sell will not
talk to one hundred thousand readers about its
points; he will go to a sales-stable. The man who
wants a cook will not advertise for her any more
than he will for his winter's supply of coal.
In London, there is a curious paper, as big as
"The London Times," devoted solely to the publication of cheap advertisements about individual
wants, matters of sale, or barter. One man has
a shotgun and wants to trade it for Blackstone's
" Commentaries." Another has a guitar and would
like to get for it a set of shirt studs; a third wants
to trade a ring for old clothes. A myriad of petty
things make their appearance here at an insignificant cost, but the paper is published solely as an
adjunct to a great sales and barter bureau. Its circulation is trifling, the cost of manufacture little
beyond the bare cost of composition,and the profits
are derived from the commissions on the sales and
trades which the bureau cultivates. This is an entirely legitimate business and a convenient one;
but it is not the business of journalism. No great
newspaper could afford to bother with it itself; far
less could it afford to bother its readers with it.
They already complain of being forced to grope
through too many pages to find what they want.
The experiment of giving them still more would
result only in driving them to the smaller and
handier papers.
C 238 J




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
If, then, the greatest newspapers of the future will
not be filled with masses of small and comparatively cheap advertising,as to a considerable extent
they are now, will they go to the other extreme?
The daring idea has sometimes been advanced
that the coming newspaper would publish no
advertisements at all. It is not impossible, though
just now quite improbable. The -old theory of selling the paper to the purchaser for the bare cost of
the white sheet on which it is printed, leaving the
advertisements to pay the expenses of making
it a newspaper, has been pretty well exploded.
The colossal expenses of the modern daily are no
longer risked upon an income so uncertain, and
at the best so fluctuating. It happens, too, by a curious law which is often found working in business
affairs, that the less you need advertisements, the
more likely you are to get them-while the more
you depend upon them as an absolute necessity for
the continuance of your publication, the less likely
they are to come.
It seems chimerical to expect printing paper to
fall to a still lower price, and at its present price
and with their present circulations none of the
great newspapers could exclude advertisements.
There is no sufficient reason to believe that the
insertion of attractive news and miscellany in the
place the advertisements now occupy would draw
in enough more readers to make the profit on the
increased circulation compensate for the loss on
the advertising. But, preposterous as it now seems,
[ 239 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
I look for the day when printing paper will sell far
below its present price; and I rest this faith on the
simple proposition that a manufactured article, the
process of manufacturing which is easy and comparatively cheap,cannot long continue to be sold at
six cents per pound, when the bulk of the raw material entering into it grows in the forest, on every
hillside, and can be bought at two dollars a cord.
The disproportion between the cost of the raw
material and the cost of the manufactured article is
too great to be permanently maintained. It is true
enough that paper-makers have only the narrowest margin of profit now; but better processes for
making wood-pulp and improved machinery for
converting it into paper must surely come. So simple a manufacture will not continue forever adding
a thousand per cent to the cost of the raw material
it uses. When the happy day of really cheap paper
comes, the greatest newspapers may fairly consider the problem of excluding everything from
their columns but that which is of universal rather
than of partially private and partially public interest.
Are we likely soon to have cheaper newspapers? You
have all been confronted, of late years, by an occasional growl like this: "Everybody has to take
lower prices nowadays. Wages are down, the cost
of living is down, everything else has come down
to what it was before the war; why don't you put
down the price of your paper?" But the newsC 240 ]




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
papers have not come down to the prices before
the war, and I make bold to say that the sagacious ones will not. "The Philadelphia Ledger"
before the war was sold at one cent. I venture to
predict that if it is ever again sold at that price, it
will be many years hence. The New York quarto
dailies used to be furnished at two cents. Who
thinks of seeing papers like those of to-day sold
at two cents again? A short answer to the inquiring growler may be really given: "We will come
down to ante-war prices whenever you are ready
to accept an ante-war newspaper."
What that was, few really remember. Looking
over the files of the journal with which I am most
familiar, I have found that on the busiest days, and
under the crowning excitements that preceded
the Rebellion, it was in the habit of receiving
an average of between one and two columns of
news by telegraph from all quarters, exclusive
only of the reports of congressional proceedings.
News from Europe all came by steamer. News
from all the considerable cities of our own continent came mainly by post when it came at all.
Clippings from the exchanges were the chief
source of supply. Even a great national nominating Convention called for only something like
two columns of telegraphing, and this was so
spread out by profuse paragraphs and other cheap
typographical tricks as to occupy double the space
we should give it now. To-day our foreign news
comes exclusively by cable; our domestic news,
C 241 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
too, comes exclusively by telegraph. A news-letter
from Chicago or St. Louis is almost unheard of, for
the simple reason that the news has been told by
telegraph before the letter could start. For the two
columns of dispatches from all quarters in 1859,
we now have page after page printed, and sometimes as much more remorselessly thrown into
the waste basket- sent by telegraph and paid for,
but not used, merely because the columns will not
contain it.
I have mentioned the transmission of news by
telegraph instead of the mails as one item in the
increased cost of making the metropolitan daily
newspaper of to-day. A dozen more might be enumerated. On no single one does any great newspaper dare to undertake material retrenchment.
To do so would be to abandon the field to its rivals.
The public have been educated up to what they
now receive, and would no more be put off with
the newspaper of 1860 than they would tolerate
again the slow mails or the antiquated railroad
accommodations of 186o. But figures are after all
more convincing than mere description. I have
selected as the year affording the fairest data for a
comparison with the present times, the year before
the election which precipitated the Civil War; and,
going back again to the records of the metropolitan
newspaper with which I am most familiar, have
extracted a few entries which tell the whole story.
In 1859 the total outlay for news, editing, typesetting, printing, and publishing, including the
[ 242 7




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
accounts of the editorial department, composingroom, press-room, publisher's department, correspondence, and telegraph, was $130,198. On
the 13th of January, 1879,the outlay for the past
year in the same departments was reported at
$377,51o. Yet this is, with many of the accounts,
subdivided, so that a part of the outlay is charged
under other heads; with all the economies of the
period since the panic, in full force; with expenses
at the lowest point in nearly every department
they have touched for several years; with the cost
of telegraphing from Washington lower than it
has ever been before, and out of sight of any price
any telegraph company has ever named-a cost
in fact of less than two mills per word as against
the old rate of from one and a half cents per word
upward; with composition almost one-third lower
than under the old spoliation system of the Printers' Union, and with salaries in every department
made in some measure to correspond with the
tendencies of the times. Let us take another year
for a fairer comparison. Against the $11,679 telegraphic expenses of 1859 set the $51,728.88 in
1874; against the composing-room bills in 1859,
amounting to $42,256, set those for 1874, amounting to $125,883.28.And finally, contrast the total
expenses of the editorial department, including correspondence, in 1859, $43,125, with the sum of
$188,829.45 spent for the same accounts in 1874.
Trifling as the expenditures of those early days
seem to us, we come now and then upon signs of
C 243 ]




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
alarm already inspired in the minds of the sagacious metropolitan publishers at the evident tendency to make a better paper than the people paid
for, to give more every morning than the money's
worth, and thus to keep steadily approaching the
time when the amount spent in making the paper
would more than overbalance all that the subscribers and advertisers were willing to give for
it. Thus, in 1864 I find a curious passage in a publisher's report,complaining of the extravagance in
the outlay for editorial work,correspondence, composition, special telegraphing, and supplements.
The feeling would seem to have been general. At
any rate there had been a comparison of figures
between different offices,and the prudent publisher
of " The Tribune " was worried because in the five
principal items of expense which he enumerated,
"The Tribune" had spent in the previous year
$28,116 more than "The Times." Here are the
contrasted items which he reported:
Tribune    7lmes
Editors and correspondence,
not war               $49,228   $45,660
War correspondence       25,706     14,040
Compositors              49,547     45,741
Special telegraphing     12,623     7,817
Supplements, "Tribune" 21,
"Times" 11              9,000     4,730
The expenses we have been considering have
been taken from ordinary years. Let us now see
what they are in extraordinary times. When a
l 244 




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
great war is raging in European countries with
whichwe have close relations through trade,travel,
and immigration,the New York reader demands
as prompt and complete, if not as detailed, news as
does the London reader, and a great journal cannot afford to disappoint its constituency by failing
to meet this demand. See now what it costs, remembering that in 1859 telegraphic expenses were
thought enormous when they had reached an annual total of $11,679. In the Franco-Prussian War
"The Tribune's" telegraphic bill, largely payable in gold, was $85,303.51. Its additional bill for
correspondence, also mostly payable in gold, was
$43,263.46. Other journals quite possibly spent
more; those that did not suffered by it.
Now take another mode of estimating what it
costs to try to meet the demand for the kind of
newspaper to which readers have been educated.
From a table of comparisons covering a series of
years I select a few sample figures. We have seen
that in 1859 the entire editorial expenses, including
all correspondence, amounted to $43,125. In 1866
the editorial expenses alone amounted to $81,775, and the correspondence to $49,300 more. In
1867 the editorial alone had swollen to $84,778;
two years later to $96,182; two years later to
$107,525; two years later to $133,854; two years
later still to $148,234. Meanwhile the correspondence had run up in the same fashion, until in one
year it reached $70,038. Not only was this news
procured and handled in more costly ways, but
C 245 ]




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
there was a vast mass more of it. Note how the
cost of putting it in type ran up. In 1859 we have
seen that the entire expenses of the composingroom were $42,256. Now take a few later years.
In 1866 they amounted to $86,609; in 1867 to
$91,oo8; in 1868 to $94,388; in 1869 to $100,769;
in 1870 to $105,492; in 1871 to $107,827; in 1872
to $113,518; in 1873 to $117,180; in 1874 to
$125,883; and in 1875 to $154,788.
Something has been said of the enormous increase in editorial expenses, but a few figures of
individual salaries will make it clearer. From an
old salary-book containing the weekly payments
from 1848 to 1859, I extract from the first page
some items that have now a curious sound. The
first entry is Mr. Sinclair, bookkeeper, $ 5; the
next Mr. Strebeigh, assistant bookkeeper, $ o.
Then follow Mr. Dana, assistant editor, $ 1; Mr.
Taylor, ditto, $12; Mr. Cleveland, ditto, $io; Mr.
Snow, money reporter, $12; Mr. Davies, in the
courts, $4; Mr. Towndrow, police reports, $7;
Mr. Augustus Maverick, proof-reader, $6; Mr.
Gibson, ship news and importations, $14; Mr.
March, Washington correspondent, $20; Mr. Robinson, ditto, $ 15. Now skip to the last page of this
same book containing the payments for the week
ending on the 31st of December, 1859. Very
largely the same men made the paper. It had
grown, as the record on the same page shows,
from the weekly use of 16834 reams for the daily
to the use of 494 reams. Below these items stood
[ 246 D




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
the personal list, doubled or trebled in length, but
with the same leading names. Reading down it
now, we pick out Mr. Sinclair, bookkeeper, $48;
Mr. Strebeigh, assistant ditto, $3o; Mr. Dana, assistant editor, $48; Mr. Ripley, ditto, $25; Mr.
Gay, ditto, $20; Mr. Towndrow, $14; Mr. Snow,
money reporter, $30; Mr. Gibson, ship news and
importations, $28; the Washington correspondents, $57.50; the Count Gurowski, $20. But the
latter was not a weekly payment, and was unusually high. Many weeks the good count, who
was only employed "by the piece," got nothing,
and the entries opposite his name were mostly
for sums of $5 or $1o. On the books, a little further back, George William Curtis figures as city
editor at $20 per week, and Henry J. Raymond, as
second on the paper, rose gradually from $8 to
$20. Richard Hildreth wrote apparently "by the
piece," and his monthly payments ranged from
$1oo to $200,-sometimes more. In 1855 William Henry Fry had risen to $25 per week; and
the next year James S. Pike was paid "for the
whole Winter's work at Washington," the gross
sum of $202.50. Bayard Taylor was credited $5
apiece for his California letters, but on his return
Mr. Greeley moved and carried an advance to
$io, on the ground that "they had made a hit."
Mr. Greeley's own name appears regularly on the
lists of those days at $50 per week. He afterward
had it cut down to $40; and there was never a subsequent advance which he did not resist. Once inC 247 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
deed there is an entry to the effect that " Mr. Greeley protested at some length against the advance in
his salary, and gave formal notice that he did not
intend to earn any more than he was now receiving."For ten or a dozen years past, it has been my
duty to fix the salaries on this same book. I have
found plenty of gentlemen who might truthfully
enough have given this last notice, but not another
who made the preliminary protest!
Does the most rigid economist expect that the
newspapers will or can return to these "prices
before the war"? Or, to pass from the mere question
of salaries, does he wish the pages of markets, foreign and domestic, to be sent once more by post,
the foreign news to come by steamer, the pages
of telegraphic dispatches, special and Associated
Press, to be replaced by clippings from the exchanges and news-letters sent by mail? Does he
wish the actual amount of matter given him each
morning reduced over one-half; and does he wish
the age of four-fifths of it increased from twentyfour hours to three weeks, before he is permitted
to see it? But, we may be told, all this is unnecessary and deceptive. Of course, expenses have
increased, but so, proportionately, have receipts.
Well, to that the balance-sheet affords an exceedingly argumentative answer. On a business of half
a million in 1859, as a two-cent paper, " The Tribune" made a net profit of $86,ooo. At the beginning of 1879 we found that on a business of nearly
three-quarters of a million as a four-cent paper,
C 248 ]




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
it had made $85,588. The fluctuations in the interval had been at least sufficient to show that in
a matter of such magnitude it was not wise to
hunt for any more risks than we already had. In
times of great excitement, Presidential years, and
the like, the volume of business of course runs up.
I have myself been able to report a net profit of
$155,000 on a business of $974,000, and on the
smaller business of $941,ooo a profit of $1 71,049;
and I have also had to report, on a business of
$925,465, a net loss of $86,690. Or to rid the
statement of figures, we have made $85,ooo as a
two-cent paper; have spent a half more and made
only the same sum as a four-cent paper. In the
interval, we have sometimes spent twice as much
to make only twice as much, while at other times,
on a like expenditure, we lost as much.
One item of increased expense, and a cruel one,
has not yet been noted. We must now pay the
postage for our readers. In a single year this has
amounted to $31,698.71, every dollar of which is
a dead loss. We pay more for special work on
our weekly than we ever did in the old times; and
its circulation to-day is larger than I find it stated
by the publisher (and I never knew a publisher
to understate those things) in his report at the
annual meeting of the year before I became connected with the paper. And yet, with this greater
cost and greater circulation, we realize less than
two-thirds the receipts of those days for weekly
subscriptions, and have to pay the postage on them
_ 249 ]




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
besides. That is a sample of what comes from
putting the price down, for it is on their weekly
issues alone that the New York journals have
chosen to reduce their rates not only to, but
below, the prices charged before the war. The
experiment, whether satisfactory or not, seems
sufficient.
But it is time to end this cumulative array of
facts and figures. I judge that they have left us all
substantially of one mind. On the whole we are not
likely to gratify our growler. We shall not return
to the prices before the war, because we dare
not return to the narrow scale of expenditure and
the meagre fare before the war, while to take the
old price and give the present quality is merely to
plunge into bankruptcy at a gallop. The cheapest
thing sold to-day in America in proportion to the
cost of its manufacture is the daily newspaper. The
average American is a shrewd buyer, but he does
not long insist on buying an article for less than
the cost of making it, for he knows that, in the
long run, that means one of two things,- that he is
dealing either with a fool whom he is ruining, or
with a knave who is cheating him.
We have seen that the next great revolution in
journalism is not likely to be a return to the cheap
prices of the period before the war. We have
seen that it is not likely to be in the direction of
increased supplements for advertising; and that
it is not likely to be in the direction of rejecting
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all advertising. What is it to be? Shall the variety
of news now furnished by the daily newspapers
be still further developed, so that, in this respect,
the contrast between the journal of the next decade and that of the present shall be as great as
between the journal of to-day and that of twenty
years ago? Yes and no. The variety can scarcely
increase because newspapers already present as
many different topics of human interest as the average mind cares to concern itself with in the day's
leisure of the average reader. There can scarcely
be more topics treated. But they will, no doubt, be
different topics.It is possible to interest large masses
of people in subjectsof more importance thanmany
of those which now fill the closely printed columns
of so many pages. The range can hardly be much
greater, but it may be higher, and higher without
being less interesting or less vivacious.
If we are to have no greater variety, shall we not
have greater quantity? As growing capital and
ever broadening resources permit, shall we not
have every morning two volumes for our four
cents where we have now only one? where ten
years ago we had the half of one? where twenty
years ago we had the half of that? Shall we not give
important political debates a verbatim report, where
we now print only four or five columns? Shall
we not double or treble the space to be accorded
the details of a great accident? Can a great public
meeting be permitted to pass without a record of
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every syllable uttered in it? Shall we not have, in
a word, brief summaries of the news for those
who are hurried, supplemented by the most voluminous details for those who have special interest
and ample leisure; and shall we not habitually contemplate the issue of sixteen pages to carry all
this matter, where more than eight now is the
exception rather than the rule?
I know very well that it is in this direction
the thoughts of many of our wisest and most progressive journalists have long turned. But nothing
seems clearer to me than the certainty that the
great journals of the future will not make their
chief progress in this direction. I do not believe that
the daily newspaper of 1890 will give many more
pages than that of 1880. Book-making is not journalism. Even magazine-making is not journalism.
The business of a daily newspaper is to print the
news of the day, in such compass that the average
reader may fairly expect to master it during the
day, without interfering with his regular business.
When it passes beyond these limits it ceases to be
a newspaper, and it ceases to command the wide
support which is essential to its success. A feeling
of annoyance arises in the mind of a reader who
has put into his hands, in the morning, more matter than he can possibly find time to read during
the day. He does not want to skip any of it,because
he feels that if he does so, he maybe missing something he ought to get. He cannot possibly read it,
and at last, in a feeling of irritation, he abandons
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the paper, buys a smaller one in its stead, skims
that, and assumes that if it was properly edited, he
has missed nothing of real importance. He does not
wish great masses of undigested news thrust upon
him, in bulk, that he may take out what he wants.
He insists that his editor shall do this for him; shall
select the salient points and present them within
reasonable compass. It would make no difference
if you offered him the undigested mass at the same
price with the compact summary. He will pay just
as much for half the matter if put in manageable
shape. The great revolution of the future in newspapers is not, therefore, to be in doubling their
size,in doubling the quantityof matter they give, or
in doubling the multitude of subjects they already
treat.
But, as we have seen,the history of journalism, for
fifty years, has been a rapid succession of revolutions, and no man knows as well as the hardworkng editor that perfection has not yet been
evolved. Other changes, as marked, are certainly
impending. What is the next?
It was a pleasant conceit of Henry Watterson's
that, if Shakespeare were living now, he would be
an editor. The fancy might have fallen better upon
a contemporary of Shakespeare's -that greatest,
wisest, meanest of mankind, who anticipated the
modern newspaper, in taking all knowledge to be
his province. But newspapers are many and perpetual. Shakespeares and Bacons come only once
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in the centuries. Yet of this we may be sure: The
field for advantages through enterprise in the mere
getting of news is about exhausted. The great
newspapers can now all command substantially the
same facilities. Generally speaking, the news that
one gets another can get if it wishes. Recurring,
then, to Watterson's conceit, it seems safe to say
that in the next great stage of journalism the enterprise that now exhausts itself on costly cable
dispatches will go to men who can make a great
news feature valuable rather from the story it tells
than from the money spent in carrying it to you;
who will buy for you a costly thing rather than
challenge your admiration merely for the money
spent in the costly transportation of a thing of less
moment. If it must send a Stanley to Africa-and
we may well hope that feats so brilliant can be
repeated-it will send also a Macaulay to tell his
story for him.
Why should the busy man read the history of
yesterday at a greater disadvantage than the history of a hundred years ago? Yet that of a hundred years ago has been most carefully collated,
sifted,winnowed, relieved of surplusage, arranged
in proper perspective. You are not forced to read
the official documents, to burrow among the dry
reports, to study with minute and painstaking care
the disjecta membra. You are not loaded with facts
that are useless, particulars that give no form or
color to the picture. All this waste is removed.
Thousands of pages are searched to give you one,
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but on that one is all you need to know. A moderately industrious man might spend his lifetime reading the authorities on which Motley constructed his " Rise of the Dutch Republic," yet who
-speaking of intelligent people in the mass, not
of individual investigators-who cares for the
authorities? Who wants anything but Motley? The
greatest of recent narrative successes has been
Green's "Short History of the English People."
Why shall not the most enterprising journal of
the next decade be that which shall still employ
colossal capital to gather all the news, and then
crown and fructify its expenditure by having a
staff of Greens and Froudes to tell it?
Are a busy people entitled to fewer labor-saving
and time-saving appliances about the affairs that
most vitally concern them -the affairs of their own
day and home -than about those of past centuries?
Why should not the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, for instance, have been as well told for us
as the impeachment of Warren Hastings? A thousand want to know the story of yesterday, where
one cares for that of a hundred years ago. Shall
this one command the labor, the scholarship, the
genius of the world, while the thousand must toil
for themselves amongthe confused heaps,and winnow a bushel for every grain they get? I do not
mean that the news of to-day must be dwarfed
into the space it would receive in the histories of a
hundred years hence. It must, of course, be treated
with the fullness which the present, or, if you will,
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the fleeting interest in it demands. But the eclectic principle is precisely the same. The reader of
to-day is entitled to have the story of the day told
for him as skilfully as if it were the story of a hundred years ago; as attractively, in proportion to his
interest in it as briefly, with as little waste and as
rigid an exclusion of everything that does not add
to the vividness and fidelity of the picture.
"The Saturday Review" called Macaulay the
father of picturesque reporters. It is in getting such
reporters that the ultimate success of the wisest
and most munificent newspaper enterprise must
yet display itself. Nor do I mean that it is only reporting on a grand scale that is to be thus ennobled-reporting a great battle, a revolution, a
pageant that fixes the eye of the world. The genius that enriched the dramatic story of the death
of Charles the Second, or the Peace of Ryswick,
never showed itself to greater advantage than in
that famous third chapter, wherein by a thousand
subtle touches and the use of a myriad trifling
incidents, like those that now lie under every
reporter's eye, there was reproduced a picture of
a past age more minute, more comprehensive,
more vivid, and, we may even say, more interesting, than any newspaper has given us of our own.
It will be the highest achievement of the most
enterprising journalism to make, day by day, for
the morning reader, such a picture of his own city,
of his own country-such a picture for him of the
world, indeed, of the day before. The elements of
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the picture will be arranged, too, precisely in the
order I have named. In the foreground will be his
own city; the middle distance will be filled by his
country; beyond that, in the smaller proportion to
which its relative importance in his eye and for his
purposes entitles it, will be the rest of the world.
But if the foreground is to be the city, that will
require the greatest care, the most elaborate work,
and certainly not the lowest order of ability. The
City Department may then cease,perhaps,to be the
place where the raw beginners wreak their will,
and become the point at which the journalistic
graduates will be expected to display their best
powers and most thorough training.
This, then, I conceive to be the next great revolution in journalism. We shall not have cheaper
newspapers. They are the cheapest thing sold now,
considering the cost of making them. We shall not
have continually growing supplement upon supplement of advertising. Individual wants will seek
mediums more suitable. Only general wants will
need the wider publicity of great journals, and
these will be kept, by the increasing cost, within
manageable compass. We shall not have more
news. The world is ransacked for it now. Earth,
sea, and air carry it to us from every capital, from
every people,from every continent, and from every
island. We shall not have bigger newspapers; they
are bigger now than a busy people can read. We
shall have better newspapers; the story better told;
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pers; papers dealing with the more important of
current matters in such style and with such fascination that they will command the widest interest. There will be more care and ability in selecting, out of the myriad of things you might tell, the
things that the better people want to be told, or
ought to be told. There will be greater skill in putting these things before them in the most convenient and attractive shape. Judgment in selecting the
news; genius in telling it-that is the goal for the
highest journalistic effort of the future. In making a newspaper, the heaviest item of expense used
to be the white paper. Now it is the news. By and
by, let us hope, it will be the brains.
What shall be the relations of this new journal
of the future toward parties? I may claim to have
been one of the apostles of independent journalism, but the zeal of the new converts has quite left
me among the old fogies. It never occurred to me
that in refusing to obey blindly every behest of a
party it was necessary to keep entirely aloof from
party-to shut off one's self from the sole agency
through which, among a free people, lasting political results can be attained. A government like
ours without parties is impossible. Substantial reforms can only be reached through the action of
parties. The true statesman and the really influential editor are those who are able to control and
guide parties, not those who waste their strength
in merely thrusting aside and breaking up the only
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tools with which their work can be done. There is
an old question as to whether a newspaper controls public opinion or public opinion controls the
newspaper. This at least is true: that editor best
succeeds who best interprets the prevailing and the
better tendencies of public opinion, and who, whatever his personal views concerning it, does not get
himself too far out of relations to it. He will understand that a party is not an end, but a means; will
use it if it lead to his end,-will use some other
if that serve better, but will never commit the folly
of attempting to reach the end without the means.
He may not blindly follow a party; in undertaking
to lead it he may get ahead of it, or even against
it; but he will never make the mistake of undervaluing a party, or attempting to get on permanently and produce lasting results without one. Far
less will he conceive that his journalistic integrity
can only be maintained by refusing to believe good
of his own party save upon demonstrative evidence; while for the sake of " fairness," he refuses
to believe evil of his opponents save on evidence
of the same sort. What his precise relation to a
party is to be, must be determined by his own
character, the character of the party, and the circumstances affecting both; but some relation is inevitable, unless he would be impotent. Of all the
puerile follies that have masqueraded before High
Heaven in the guise of Reform, the most childish
has been the idea that the editor could vindicate
his independence only by sitting on the fence and
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throwing stones with impartial vigor alike at friend
and foe.
Granting, then, that all great newspapers which
aim to accomplish any considerable results, or
exert any considerable influence upon the organized public opinion of their time, will come to be
classed as generally acting with or in advance of
one or another great party, is there not still a wide
field upon which the whole Press, irrespective of
party affiliations or tendencies, should unite? With
some minor disagreements as to methods, may we
not substantially work all together, on at least
these three pressing necessities of the time:
i. A constant, systematic supervision of local
government, in all things affecting taxes and the
increase of local debt. There is no need to enlarge
upon the crushing evils of the municipal extravagance which for some years has run riot over the
whole continent. We have been accustomed to talk
with bated breath of the enormous size and stifling
weight of our national debt. Yet to manage the national debt is child's play compared with the task
of placing on any solvent basis,and within manageable compass,the municipal obligations of the country. Said one of the wisest financiers of the West,
"If I lived in New York, I should feel bound to
devote a considerable part of every day in my own
self-defence, in cooperation with other capitalists,
in an attempt to keep the city government within
bounds, and to keep down taxes." He has since
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learned that he might, to advantage, have been at
work for years at the same task in his own city. It
is a policy on which all newspapers might fairly
unite. It is at least one to which the best efforts of
every editor who wishes well to the city which sustains him should, without cant, honestly and clearsightedly be directed.
2. Equally hearty should be the union of effort
toward an examination of all charities. The growth
of this interest is something enormous. The abuses
connected with it are equally startling, and the
mischievous effects are only second to the evils
wrought upon the whole community by municipal
extravagance.
3. It does not seem to me quite a truism, as
some may regard it, nor yet quite utopian, as others surely will, to declare that the Press ought to
join heartily, in right brotherly accord, no matter what the party differences, in waging war
on abuses affecting the public morals. Does anybody suppose that, if we did, we should see on our
statute-books laws against vice which nobody enforces and nobody expects to see enforced? How
long would policy shops thrive against such aunion?
How long would Excise Commissioners defy the
decency of the community by licensing peanut
stands as "hotels," in order that they might sell
liquor in defiance of law?
We might well wish, but with less hope, for a
similar agreement upon the great problem of the
treatment of criminal news. None of us have to
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deal with a more perplexing question, and as yet
the men of goodwill in the profession have reached
no common ground about it. Meantime, those who
value immediate pecuniary success above anyother
consideration have found the criminal news a real
gold mine, and explore and exploit it accordingly.
A great newspaper must make money. Moneymaking, indeed, may not be the sole object; may,
perhaps, not be the chief object, since it is a profession, and not a mere trade, which editors conduct. But whether for influence or durable success, a sound commercial basis is indispensable
to a great daily newspaper. Prosperity carries
weight; solvency gives a sense of security. The
paper which supports itself respectably can better
expect to have its opinions regarded by others. It
must, therefore, rest for its chief support upon the
honest sale of wares the public want. Whenever
it does not it becomes a mere journal of propagandism, and it lacks influence precisely in proportion
as it lives by passing the hat. Young editors are
likely to grow up in an atmosphere of opposition
to the counting-room. As they become older they
cease to despise the base of their supplies, and
will be ready to give some careful consideration to
certain counting-room points:
1. There can be but one head to a newspaper,
and that head, in the nature of things, must be its
editor. The control cannot with safety reside in the
counting-room. In younger days I was disposed to
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depreciate the publisher. Long since I learned the
folly of that, but I insist, as strongly now as ever,
that the place for final decision must be the editor's chair. No newspaper can have the highest respect whose editor does not peremptorily say when
occasion requires, " I will not insert that advertisement at any cost. I am not willing to lay it before
my readers." "I will criticise that abuse, no matter what advertisements it may drive away from
us." And again, "I will not put that advertisement
in that place or in that type, no matter what they
are willing to pay for it." Wherever there is a conflict between the counting-room and the editorialroom on these or a hundred similar and larger
points, there is always weakness and loss of public
respect, no matter which side prevails. All successful newspaper conduct points to the necessity of an
absolute autocracy, with the autocrat in the editor's
chair.
2. One golden rule should be kept before every
occupant of the counting-room: "This is a oneprice establishment." There is no other fairway for
advertisers; there is no other self-respecting way
for a newspaper.If you sell a certain part of your
space at all, sell it under the same conditions to all
alike. There is no special dispensation for newspapers which permits them to commit commercial
sins and escape the commercial penalty. If you do
a " Cheap John " business, you must take a " Cheap
John" standing. If you want a business as solid as
that of A. T. Stewart, you must abide by the comC 263 ]




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mercial maxims that made his success. The moment
one advertising agent is able to get a ten-line advertisement into your columns under any particular classification cheaper than another one can, or
cheaper than any individual customer can (the recognized commission excepted), that moment your
business has ceased to be an honest commercial
business, and has degenerated into dicker. There
can be no safer rule for a publisher than to dismiss
any employee who, for any consideration, takes an
advertisement from any quarter for less than the
honest rate the paper professes to charge for it, or
who charges anybody else a penny more than that
rate. All this sounds like a truism, and yet we shall
be nearer the golden age when more newspapers
adopt a policy at once so simple,so straightforward,
and so remunerative.
3. Sell your wares for what they are. Don't surrender to the vulgar folly that you must make
advertisers believe that you have an incredible circulation, or even that you have the largest circulation. The value of a circulation is often comparative,
anyway; one paper with a list of but ten thousand
may be worth as much as another which prints one
hundred thousand. The public is finding out the
humbug about big circulations, and sooner or later
it goes where it gets its money's worth. "The Nation" announces that it prints only seventy-five
hundred copies, all told, yet it gets fifteen cents a
line for its advertising, has plenty of it, and gives
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son of the least weight against publishing a daily
statement of circulation. The public have been so
demoralized by the grotesque ideas of numbers,
not merely as to newspapers but in a hundred other
matters,with which every editor is familiar,that ordinary figures have largely lost their significance.
You all know how a meeting which completely
packs a hall with seats for five hundred is always
spoken of as a gathering of thousands; how a man
who is known to have a few thousand dollars in
each of two or three ventures presently becomes,
in the current talk, worth a hundred thousand,
while from that to being a millionaire who swindles
the tax collector in his returns is the shortest sort
of a step. Not until the administrator comes to look
up the assets is the delusion discovered, and then
the dear public goes through the same old amazement over and over again. Just such mistakes exist
perpetually in the popular fancy in regard to the
circulations of favorite newspapers, until there is
scarcely one in the country which can frankly state
exactly what it prints, handsome as the showing
might be, without disappointing some of its champions, who, having lost the meaning of figures,
would think it certainly entitled to double as much.
But the policy of preposterous brag on circulation
has ceased to pay. The other members of the profession know,and the public will learn, that there is
some sort of proportion between means and ends,
that the range of circulation and the mechanical
facilities for producing it bear some relation to the
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real figures, and should to the figures given. In my
cotton-planting days a genial, hearty rebel neighbor, General Yorke, undertook to take the conceit
out of his Yankee friend. "How are you getting
along cotton-picking?" said he. "Oh, fairly well."
"How much are you getting out? " "About a bale a
day," was the practical and unsophisticated answer.
" Oh,indeed," said the general, " that is doing very
well for a Yankee; very well." "And how are you
getting on?" returned the Northerner. "Oh, I am
picking pretty lively now; I am getting out about
eight bales a day." Rushing home in hot haste, I
called up the " driver" of the picking gang, and exclaimed, "Jasper, General Yorke says he is getting out eight bales a day. Now we are getting out
only one, though we have more cotton here than
he has. You must bring your people down to their
work, and not let the cotton go to waste." Jasper
scratched his head awhile and said, " Did you say
Massa Yorke say he gittin' out eight bales a day?"
" Yes." " Well, Massa Yorke amighty good man.
But did he say he gittin' out eight bales a day?"
"Yes, I tell you, that 'sjust what he said."" Well,"
continued the puzzled negro, scratching his head
more vigorously, "Massa Yorke 's a berry good
man. If he say he git eight bales a day, he git 'em;
but dis I know fo' sho': he haul 'em all in at one load,
on one fo'-mule wagon." The case was disposed of;
and the similar brag of the newspaper publisher
who issues fifty thousand copies a day and prints
them on one four-cylinder press between half-past
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four and six in the morning, admits of as ready and
complete elucidation.
4. Sell your own wares; don't fool away time
trying to run down your neighbor's. What difference does it make what his circulation is? Probably you don't know much about it anyway; but
you do know about your own. Put a fair price on
space in that, and give your whole mind to selling
it. If your space is worth the price you ask, you can
get all the advertising you want, whenever business is prosperous enough to warrant it, or advertisers are wise enough to know how to make
business. Arnold & Constable sell their goods by
offering at a fair price what the public want, and
forcing the public to know it,-not by standing
around criticising the offers of A. T. Stewart & Co.
and Lord & Taylor. An old rule ( French, I think,
in its origin) used to fix the value of the ordinary
advertising in a daily newspaper going among the
better classes-the classes likely to buy and with
taste enough to want good things-at one cent per
line per thousand copies of actual circulation. It was
a fair rule. There are plenty of papers that charge
more and earn it. But on the whole it will be a
good thing for the daily papers having their largest
circulation among the best people when they are
able to enforce that rate. The essential thing is to
have some rate, fixed with reference to the actual
value of the circulation, and to adhere honestly to
it with all alike.
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THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
umns. I realize that this is not the golden age, and
that we cannot expect impossibilities. I do not know
of five considerable newspapers in the United States
rigidly adhering to-day to this rule; I doubt if there
is one that has never, under any temptation, departed from it. But we can all see that honest dealing with our readers, and honest dealing with our
advertisers, alike tend in this direction. It may be
said, plausibly enough, that there is a wide class
of subjects in which the public has a certain interest, while private parties have a greater interest;
that there is, therefore, a certain legitimate excuse
for publishing matter about them as news, and also
a certain legitimate excuse for taking pay for it as
advertising. But this opens too many doubtful questions, and gives the cash drawer too great a leverage on the editor's judgment, as to the real degree
of public interest in the news. The safe way, the
true way, the way to which we are ultimately coming, not soon, perhaps, but surely, is to put whatever is to be paid for squarely and honestly into
columns that are recognized as paid for; to select
what is to be printed as news solely with reference
to the largest interest of the widest number; and
then, if such selection happens to further private
interest as well, to take the pay for that in the high
esteem with which those interested will come to
regard a newspaper so judicious in its selections.
6. Have we not nearly reached the limit of public patience in the matter of type? May we not fairly
insist soon on a reform which shall make all type
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readable, none of it so small as to be trying to ordinary eyes; and none of it so large and grotesque
as to be offensive to ordinary taste?
7. Shall we not soon recognize the fact that the
fast printing-presses, demanded by the needs of the
great newspapers, are not adapted to the printing
of engravings? Can we not persuade advertisers to
abandon the effort to make these presses do what
they were never intended to do? If double prices
for cuts will not persuade them out of it, if blotches
where they look for pictures will not, then will it
not soon be time to try stones instead of grass, and
to drive the cuts out of your advertising orchards
at any cost?
But these are mere business reforms. There are
those who insist that the thing really needed is
what the old Scotch divines used to call "root and
branch work"-that the whole man is sick, the
whole heart faint. The elder times, they say, were
better than these; the whole character of the Press
is steadily deteriorating.
Well, we have faults enough. And yet the elder
times were not better than these. There was never
a time when the Press resisted greater temptations, or more resolutely maintained a level above
its surroundings. The thing always forgotten by
the closet critic of the newspapers is that they must
be measurably what their audiences make them
what their constituencies call for and sustain. The
newspaper cannot uniformly resist the popular
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sentiment any more than the stream can flow
above its fountain. To say that the newspapers are
getting worse is to say that the people are getting
worse. That doctrine our superfine moralists have
croaked ever sincewe had an existence as a people;
but whenever the crisis came we have always
found that, beneath the surface froth, the currents
of national life flowed pure and strong as ever. The
evil tendencies of the Press in our day are to be
seen plainly enough; they have been seen in all
days, since the first newspaper was made. It even
works more evil now than it ever wrought before,
because its influence ismore widespread; but it also
works more good, and its habitual attitude is one
of effort toward the best its audience will tolerate.
There is not a newspaper to-day in New York,
faulty as they all are, that is not better than its
audience. There is not an editor in New York who
does not know the fortune that awaits the man
there who is willing to make a daily paper as disreputable and vile as a hundred and fifty thousand
readers would be willing to buy. It is the newspaper opportunity of the time- the only great opportunity that has come since the concentration of
capital and mechanical facilities gave the monopoly of the present field to the existing journals.
Several of these might take it; the editor of every
one of them knows he is making a better paper
than his constituency would like, and that he might
add a half to his circulation by making it worse;
every one of them knows that a less scrupulous
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rival may come to do what he refuses. It is with an
ill grace that theoretical reformers reproach these
men for lowering the newspaper standard, and
making journalism a curse instead of a blessing.
But there are plenty of things we ought to reform. First among these I reckon the general tendency, even with the soberest and maturest journals, to the faults of youth. In the nature of things,
this tendency will be constant, for young men do
most of the reporting and a good deal of the editing, and always must. The rank and file can no
more be made up of gray-beards in a newspaper
than in an army in the field. Now youth, and particularly youth intrusted with power, is hasty, impetuous, given to rash ways. It is sure to be hot
tempered and apt to be acrid. It naturally overstates the case. It is always aggressive, and is in
danger of being uncharitable. In the pride of its
superior wisdom it is often over-critical; and it
often mistakes a sneer for an argument. It miscalculates its resources. It mistakes the work it has
in hand; it sometimes undervalues opponents, and
again it sometimes trains its heaviest artillery on
mosquitoes. Just such are the faults which a candid observer must find more or less developed in a
majority of our newspapers. The wise editor will
reckon upon them as constant forces, with which
he must always deal, against which he must be on
perpetual guard.
Nor will he mistake the public judgment, if he
assume it to be ill pleased with much of this youthC 271 J




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
ful effervescence. Our people like well enough to
see a hearty knock-down blow given; but they
hate a perpetual nagging. A daily diet of snarl
and sneer is not to their taste. They like to have
their paper positive and frank; they like to feel
that for a good cause and at the right time it can
make a hard fight; but they prefer that its natural
attitude should be kindly (critical enough it is sure
to be anyway), and that its prevailing tone should
be one of good humor. They don't want to rise
from its perusal, every morning, with a bad taste
t in their mouths. The editor who commands their
respect and persuades their judgment must keep
his temper, must keep out of petty personal controversies, must be seen to have higher motives
for attack than spite, and higher motives for praise
than mutual admiration. In a word, the spirit that
habitually controls the columns must be clearly
recognizable as one of justice and goodwill.
In that spirit we might escape the present tendency to run in ruts, both with our praise and
our blame,-so that, no matter what a man does,
we can pretty safely predict at once what a good
many papers are going to say about it. If he is a
man they are in the habit of praising, it takes little
less than arson or highway robbery, demonstrably proved, to force them to hint a fault. If he is a
man they generally blame, he is promptly and as
a matter of course assumed to be guilty, however
wanton or unlikely the charge, unless he can instantly prove himself innocent. Nor will any modC 272 J




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
erate array of proof suffice. He must make a case
absolutely impregnable, with the presumptions all
held rigidly against him. Nay, even if his innocence
be demonstrated by the exclusion of every possibility of guilt, it will still be grudgingly remarked
that, while this explanation seems plausible, it is a
very bad scrape,anyway, for such a man to be getting mixed up in!Through this unfortunate tendency, blackmailers and all manner of personal
enemies find the Press their most serviceable ally.
Let them but start a malignant story against a
prominent man, and the whole hostile Press may
be counted on to espouse it for them, push it, and
carry relentlessly forward the work of persecution.
Here is the open secret of the enormous spread in
this country of calumny and personal abuse. Only
get the Press out of these ruts of praise and blame,
and the half of it is annihilated- strangled before
it is born.
Is the power of the Press declining? Every little
while some discontented clergyman or extinct politician declares it is. Quite recently they have given
us very solemn discourses about it. Newspapers
are more read, they admit, but less heeded.With
the air of discoverers they tell us of the great
things done by journals of the past generation,
and triumphantly exclaim: "But who minds now
what a newspaper says?"There were giants in
those days; only pigmies walk the earth to-day.
In the earlier times the great newspaper stood for
C 273 3




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
a great force; now it only stands for a great noise.
It has become selfish, it wants to make money, it
is on a commercial basis now, it actually supports
itself-'-how can such a Press wield the old influence? I wish to speak with due respect;but really this
sort of talk —and we hear a good deal of it, from
unsuccessful quarters — seems to me the twaddle of
mushy sentimentalists. Far wiser and manlier was
the tone taken by Lord Macaulay, in opening his
great history: "Those who compare the age on
which their lot has fallen with a golden age which
exists only in their imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly
informed as to the past will be disposed to take a
morose or desponding view of the present."
It is easy to marshal the great names of the
past, and idle to try to match them from among
the living. We count no man great, anyway, till he
is dead. But great men do not necessarily make
the greatest newspapers. As well might you challenge "The London Times," in the zenith of its influence, say in 1855, to prove itself the equal of
the old" Publick Advertiser," of the century before,
and crush it with the taunt, "Where have you a
man the equal of Junius?" As well twit our newspapers of the seaboard to-day with their inferiority to the old "Pennsylvania Gazette," because
among them all is to be found no Benjamin Franklin. Most true it is that the foremost editorial writer
of our time has had and is to have no successor.
Horace Greeley stood alone, without a peer and
C 274 D




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
without a rival,-not perhaps the ideal editor, but,
fairly judged, the ablest master of controversial
English and the most successful popular educator
the journalism of the English-speaking world has
yet developed. I remember how through half his
career the men he had angered were always saying his power had declined.
It is not true that the ability of the Press is
declining. The papers of the country are better
written now than they ever were before. They are
better edited. Their average courtesy is greater;
their average morality is purer; their average tendency higher. They better hit the wants of great,
miscellaneous communities, and so they have more
readers in proportion to population. Their power
may be more diffused; butitis unmistakably greater.
There has been no more remarkable phenomenon in the history of the profession than the rapid
growth of the country Press, and its increase in
ability, in resources, in self-respect, and in influence. There are half a dozen towns in the interior
of New York which now have better newspapers,
with larger income and more influence, than those
of the metropolis itself a third or perhaps even a
quarter of a century ago.
Let the croakers take any of these towns, or any
considerable town in the country, and compare the
character and the influence of its Press with that of
a generation ago, or of the period just before the
war. Take Rochester, or Utica, or Troy. Take the
leading papers of the New York State Association,
E 275 ]




THE PRACTICAL ISSUES
and compare their circulation, their standing, their
actual control of state affairs, with what they were
in 1860. Or take my own old home, of which I may
speak the more readily, since I think I know it well.
We are very quick at singling out the foibles of its
leading editors. Even the Cincinnatians themselves
are ready,now and then,in a spiteful mood, to long
for the good old days of "Charley" Hammond,
and the other half-forgotten worthies of a halfbarbarous period. Yet I undertake to say that from
the year when the first-comers established themselves in Colonel Israel Ludlow's village around
the fort and Indian trading-post opposite the mouth
of the Licking, down to this year of grace 1879,
there has never been a year when the Press of
Cincinnati was so ably written or so full of news,
was so much read or so much followed as it is
to-day; never a year when it had so much to do
with shaping the policy of Ohio, and of the Ohio
valley; never a year when its influence counted for
so much in the nation; never a year when so much
power was concentrated there in so few hands as
rests to-day in those of Murat Halstead, Richard
Smith, and John McLean. If you dispute it, name
the time, the papers, the men!
No! The power of the newspaper is not declining. Never before was it so great. Never before did
it offer such a career. But it is power accompanied
by the usual conditions,-greatest when most selfrespecting and least self-seeking. There is more
good,young blood tending to this than toanyof the: 276 j




IN A NEWSPAPER OFFICE
other professions. There is more movement in it
than in bar, or pulpit, or whatever other so-called
learned profession you will,-more growth,a larger
opportunity, a greater future. We are getting the
best. These young men will leave us far behind.
They will achieve a usefulness and command a
power to which we cannot aspire. Very crude and
narrow will seem our worthiest work to the able
editors of a quarter or a half century hence-very
splendid will be the structure they erect. We shall
not rear the columns or carve the capitals for that
stately temple. Let us at least aspire, with honest
purpose and on a wise plan, to lay aright its foundations.


C 277 ]




I




AN EDITOR'S REFLECTIONS
III
RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS








RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS


T      HERE is a familiar phrase, still carelessly
accepted by nearly everybody, which is, in
fact, as completely out of date as the Ptolemies.
Generations of Americans and of Englishmen have
quoted, and still quote it as a final utterance about
the secret birth of that modern ruler of the world,
Public Opinion: " Let me make the songs of a people, and I care not who makes its laws." But where
is the song-writer to-day, compared with the reporter? Who is there who does not read the newspapers? What reading reaches your mind each new
day, at such prosperous moments? What reading is
resumed with such absolute regularity, day after
day,and morning and evening? What song,-nay,
what poem, play, speech, novel, scripture,- what
other utterance of any kind, unfailingly gets your
attention, every day of your life,-before you set
out, taking from it its color as you face the world;
when you return, accepting its evening reflections
on the day, instead of even framing your own?
Some adequate comprehension of this tremendous fact in modern life was nodoubt the motive for
founding here a course of lectures,expected to deal
primarily with newspapers and the public questions
they raise. In appearing before you as the first
lecturer in this new course, I am unwilling to proceed at once to my subject without a word in grateful memory of the honored son of Yale to whom
the foundation is due. Mr. Isaac H. Bromley may
i: 281 




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
best be rated, perhaps, in terms which Yale will
fully appreciate, by saying that he was a member,
and peer to the foremost, in the Class of '53. More
than once it was my privilege to be admitted to the
reunions of that famous class. Randall Gibson and
Andrew D. White and Edmund C. Stedman, and
Wayne MacVeagh and George W. Smalley and
Theodore Bacon, and Mr. Justice Shiras and Henry
C. Robinson and Charlton T. Lewis, and many
another as well known surrounded the board,
but among them all no man would have reckoned
Mr. Bromley in other than the front rank.
He led distinctly a newspaper career, first on
journals under his own control here in Connecticut,then on two or three in New York and Buffalo,
either as editor-in-chief or editorial contributor,
and finally as a member of my staff on " The New
York Tribune." There was an interruption of a
few years during which he acted as assistant to the
president of the Union PacificRailway, Mr. Charles
Francis Adams; and then he returned to his old
desk at "The Tribune," which he left again only
on his way to his long home. I shall not detain you
to speak of the rare quality of his writing, of his
inimitable wit, or of his lovable personality. But
there is one incident in his service which perhaps
may be recalled as an appropriate introduction to
the lectures he wished delivered to Yale men about
newspaper work. He had been as enthusiastic as
any of us in our campaign for Hayes againstTilden
for the Presidency. But on the day after the elecC 282 j




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
tion he made up his mind that we had probably
lost.W'\hen the dispute over the result broke out,
he became more and more disturbed at the steady
support given by our editorial page to the Republican claim of General Hayes's election. At first
he merely avoided writing on the subject. Then
he began stating his doubts to his associates, and
even offering them to me in editorial form. Next
he thought it his duty to address me a long and
cogent letter of remonstrance against my course;
and finally he came to me with the statement that
he felt as if he must give up all connection with a
journal whose attitude in such a national crisis he
could not conscientiously approve. It was not till
I was able to tell him some of the facts which were
afterward elaborately developed in our translation
of the famous cipher dispatches from Gramercy
Park that his purpose was changed and he was
content to resume his usual routine.
In these days, when a newspaper office is sometimes sold with its staff like a livery stable with
its stock; when some editorial writers pass freely
from an Administration to an anti-Administration
paper,from a Tammany organ to a Republican
organ, or from a protective tariff to a free trade
one, without the drooping of an eyelid, or a sign
that they consider the change more important than
that of the bricklayer who passes from work on
a church to work on a dance-hall or liquor saloon,
it is good to remember editors of another kind, and
to begin these lectures by recalling this character[ 283 j




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
istic incident in the life of the man who founded
them.
There may be a justification for the lawyer who
exerts his utmost ability and exhausts every legal
artifice in the effort to acquit a client whom he suspects or believes to be guilty. But it is a practice
one does not admire, even in a profession where
the ministers of justice themselves may sometimes
assign such a duty. For my own part, I should be
ashamed of the vocation I have followed through
life if I thought its successful pursuit involved the
editorial writer in advocating one doctrine he did
not believe or making one statement he did not
think true. Far better, more manly, more dignified, more self-respecting and respected, to be at
once the hod-carrier on the liquor saloon. He at
least practises no sham and tells no lies.
I know well enough how prevalent now is a
contrary view of editorial ethics,- especially in the
large cities and among subordinates atleast in some
of the most popular and widely read newspapers.
"I Yes,that is exactly the opposite of what I used to
write on 'The Clarion,'" I have heard more than
one bright man say,"but what would you have?
I must furnish what I can find a market for!." Gentlemen, and scholars of Yale, I feel sure that like
Dr. Johnson in a similar case, you will not recognize that necessity. The man might at least have
dug potatoes, and remained respectable. There is
no law compelling you to write editorials you do
not believe, no order of court that may be conE 284 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
strued into permitting you to attempt making the
worse appear the better reason; and there is still
in the mind of every honest educated man a wholesome loathing for that leprous form of modern
degeneracy, the intellectual prostitute.
There has never been a time, I think, in the history
of colleges in this country, when so many of teir
students were looking toward the possibility of a
-,._,,-~.- - -" - -.   -,.._.~. ~,...~...~~   c?  ^.,..~-..~-,~. ~~~..~..^,........:..: 1 -
newspaper career. There is a feeling, onthe one
hand; that the professions are overcrowded; and
on theother, that the newer fields to which applied
scienceii antii siessnbeckon, o-fer at the outset
slower a vances-' and less attractive experiences.
The idea of being. brought into.contact with all
forms ofpublic life,ofseeinggreat ratn.sactio s and
watchinog the actors in them,oQf writing from day to
davthe history of a marvellous age,-all this naturall yasates the ardent and aspiring mindds.
true, too, that the young man of good qualifications
gets quicer returns n newspaper work thanelsewi.eT -f&e-su3aidies law, three or four years more
must be taken out of his life after his graduation,
before he can enter upon his vocation; and then
he has the cheerful prospect of starvation for as
many more before clients begin to find him out.
A similar delay confronts the medical student, and
patients often display a similar backwardness about
coming forward to the young doctor's office. But
the college gaduate who once getsa c E  -
signmenton a  sy     i
E 285 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
find himself Witk.asnmanymore ashe cares for
wthin a fortnight, and maypresently secure amodest salary that w'thhealth and industry at once puts
him bevond want.-Th ten  aie are fascinations in
the sense of influence, in thwer to reach the
public attention or shape public opinion, even in
the facilircnoming ncontact with important
men and etting somewhat behind the scenes in
transactions that interest the whole community.
It cannot be denied tthat'there is a certain justice
in many of these considerations. And yet he first
advice a competent and experienced newspaper
-W is   ~-t — ~~tgyong airant will be the old
one '"Don't." It is an irregular, exacting, exposing,
te  t         demands ntense and long-continued application; breaks into alm ner of engagements entailstshardest wo
evyeryhodyelse is at leisure; and requires, even
when pursued by gentlemen, under the direction
of a gentieman, ccaisa     ions from which
a gentleman's -irst impulse is to shrinkB. eides
'the e-er               r   is esn ingt than in the old
proessionsu o        cran  t ufortyu or fifty
men  awju   Ne2    rka  ho have won distinction and fortune in the law,_Can you count half as
many who are doingas well in both particulars on
t henewspapers? Nor can it be said that the tendencyirte law appears yet to be toward diminishing the number or value of these prizes. Among
the newspapers it does seem to be that way. Great
success does not always bring esteem, or fortune,
C 286 j




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
or permanence. The lower walks of the business
are enormously overcrowded; the competition is
not always scrupulous, and the pay is apt to be
very small. Besides, the objective point of half the
collegians in the country, who want to get into the
newspapers, is New York; and that is precisely the
place in the whole country most overrun already
with applicants, and so busy as to be most chillingly indifferent to newcomers.
A certain number of young men who have been
coquetting with the idea of newspaper work after
graduation will be discouraged by such considerations; and if so, I shall certainly have done them
a benefit. On the other hand, neither they nor the
whole host of other disadvantages that might be
marshalled will discourage some others. These will
not be harmed by having paused to reflect upon
them; but the man who cannot be persuaded or
discouraged or frightened out of a newspaper office
is practically the only man who is reasonably sure
of making a success of it. In the past forty years
I have  ndisedfundredsko[T3ong men to keep
away   g   ewp    r      ndcarcel     y recalLhaxinng advised one to enter it. The men w o
were possessed with the ldea, who had eaten me
insanewee,;and i coi ld not rbe  t'1 s toathei  d
estateif me-ro told    T be  rien awayfrom
the in'-ws aper o166swei'e tIhe men w h o succeeded.
No young man should take such a decision,noWever, under the idea that the newspaper press of
j 287 j




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
America is now the institution he has read about,
or formed a favorable idea of, fifteen years ago. It
is undergoing transformations with the rapidity of
a prestidigitateur. Within the lifetime of the boys
now in the preparatory schools, fitting for Yale,
the changes have been almost revolutionary; and
while they were largely physical at theoutset,they
necessarily opened the way to moral changes as
striking. It will be an advantage at least to comprehend these physical and moral changes, before
rushing into the business.
I had occasion recently to revise an article on
American newspapers, which I had been requested,
fifteen or sixteen years ago, to prepare for the
ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." In
that I had mentioned that there was then only one
daily illustrated paper in America. Now it would
probably be easier to enumerate those without
illustrations than those with them. It was mentioned then that most of the newspapers springing up were of the four-page class, originating in
a reaction against large or blanket sheets; that
they aimed at great condensation of routine news,
though with" special prominence for sensations,"
and were coming to be sold for the low price of
two cents. Note the changes now from that shortlived reaction. First, the world never saw as large
and long-winded papers as those of to-day. On
special occasions, or on Sundays, they often rise
to sixty pages, and at times to a hundred, or even
more. For the ordinary week-day issues, a cornm[ 288 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
mon average in the great cities is from twelve to
twenty-four pages. Secondly, the notion of a condensed newspaper has in most cases been thrown
to the winds. Even routine news, casual city reports, and the Associated Press dispatches from
remote and unimportant points are often stretched
out to an inordinate length and with wearisome
detail. Far more miscellaneous news is collected
than ever before-far more, in fact, than the most
prolix of newspapers is ever able to print. Tedious
as the published reports are, nearly every New
York newspaper still throws into the waste basket,
every night, masses of "copy" which the Associated Press brings it. On the other hand, the sensational news is now expanded, displayed, and exploited beyond all precedent. The theory seems to
be that what takes with the public now is no longer
quality but quantity. Again the two-cent paper, instead of being still a novelty as twenty years ago,
is beginning to be called by some leaders of the
current journalistic movement, "a back number."
Many old papers have reduced their price from
four, three, or two cents to one, and hosts of new
one-cent papers have sprung up, often as large
as those sold for three times as much. And next,
with the increase in size and the reduction in price,
has come a marked change in the habits of the
American newspaper reader. He often buys two
or three papers in the morning,where one formerly contented him. He reads none of them with
the thoroughness or care he used to give to the sinC 289 j.




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
gle one he then took, and he is apt to be less influenced by what any of them say. In fact, crsory and
thoughtless skimmin of a number of newsapers
every layi as with large  asses almost displaced
the reaagn   books, and become a species of intellectual dissipaion, on whicn many fritter away
their time, dam      iors   of attention, and
b   dlrans till they come nearjustifying
t hat quaint eion   with whii aPhiladelphia philatiroist reguired the exlusion from the library.
and readig-room he was foundingof" those teachers of disjointed thinking the daily newspapers."
What is the intellectual state to be naturally
expected after a morning spent in reading details
of the petty defalcation of a county treasurer you
never heard of, in a Western town you don't know
anything about; details of some domestic infelicity of a salesman in a " dry-goods emporium " in
Kansas City, who has had the misfortune to admire an actress in St. Louis; details next of a fire
in East Haddam Four Corners, and next of a
cloudburst in Dakota, and next of a raid by cattle
thieves near the Colorado Canyon, and next of
a dinner in the American Colony in Paris, with
an account of the ladies' gowns, and of a scandal
among singers in London, with biographies and
portraits; and next five sentences from an hour's
speech of Mr. Chamberlain on the British policy
in South Africa, and not even five sentences from
Mr. Campbell-Bannerman's reply, but a graphic
account of how he and Arthur Balfour were
L 290 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
dressed; and next somebody's guess at Mr. Hanna's secret purpose in his advocacy of a ship subsidy, and a speculation as to why Fred Grant has
been made a brigadier in the regular army,- all
this read between cigars and with punctuations of
talk about the weather and stocks; and then the
whole of it read over again under different headings and with different display in another newspaper? Did the Philadelphian only say " disjointed
thinking "? Why didn't he say " arrested thinking,
and an intellectual state of oyster-like consciousness"?                                  j
It may clarify your ideas concerning the newspapers of to-day and aid a decision about devoting
a life to work upon them, if we give some attention to circumstances which have promoted, indeed
compelled, these revolutionary changes in their
character and conduct.
The first far-reaching circumstance was the
amazing decline in the cost of the raw material.
Within my individual experience I have bought
paper at from twenty-two cents per pound to a
cent and a half per pound! As late as 1873 I found
myself entangled in acontract for avery poor quality of straw paper, rough and brittle, at twelve and
a half cents. Then came the inventions for making
paper out of wood. Improvements in this process
reduced the price and stimulated consumption;
while the increasing consumption in turn attracted
more capital into paper mills and introduced all the
E 291 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
economies that combination and manufacture on
the largest scale permit. The price of a fair quality of white paper for newspaper use thus steadily declined till the annual averages in New York
were as follows:
1875          8.53 cents per pound
1880          6.92 cents per pound
1885          5.16 cents per pound
1890          3.38 cents per pound
At last in i 897 large consumers were able to make
contracts in New York for paper, delivered at their
press-room doors, at one and a half cents a pound.
The combinations which over-competition compelled, together with some other circumstances,
have led since then to a slight rise, but New York
papers, prudent enough to submit early to small
advances and make contracts in time, are still
buying at less than two cents per pound, or at less
than one-eleventh of the price in the last year of
the Civil War.
The transformation in printing machinery kept
pace with that in the manufacture of paper. During the Civil War the greatest newspapers were
still printed on separate sheets, fed by hand, one
by one, to revolving cylinders, that were built up,
one over another, into lofty and cumbrous machines which sometimes required forty feet of head
room. There was a separate feeder for each cylinder, and another man to look after the printed output from each. After all the sheets for the current
edition had been thus fed in, printed, and arranged: 292 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
in piles, they were then turned over, lifted up to
the several cylinders, and fed in again to print the
other side. Next they were carried to a group of
folding-machines and again fed into these by hand.
They were then counted and arranged in bundles
for the newspaper dealers or the mail by a small
army of men in the mailing and delivery rooms.
The first great change, cheapening and quickening this process, came from the invention of machinery by which a continuous roll of paper could
be drawn, under pressure, almost simultaneously
over one revolving cylinder and under another,
thus getting both sides printed at once, and then
under a knife which cut it into sheets. This banished
the multitude of feeders, did away with the necessity of running the half-printed sheets through
again to print the other side, and thus greatly
cheapened as well as quickened the process. Then
came another invention by which an attachment
to this "Web press" received the printed sheets,
as they were unwound from the roll, printed,
and cut off. It led each sheet between tapes and
under bars and rollers that folded them one after
another, pasted the leaves together, cut the edges,
and automatically counted the papers into bundles
of twenty, fifty, or one hundred. This banished the
folding-machines with their attendants, and the
army of counters; and another enormous reduction in the cost of producing a newspaper had been
effect.
ext improvements in stereotyping made it posC 293 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
sible to duplicate rapidly the plates for each page
of the newspaper. Press-makers took advantage
of this to build double machines that should carry
two plates for each page and so print two newspapers at once; and, this path once opened, the
course was continued, till now we have presses
that carry four, six,or eight sets of plates,and print
four, six, or eight complete papers at once, all cut,
pasted, folded, and counted. These advances have
all been distinctively American work. When the
century closed, the high-water mark attained by
the American printing-press manufacturer was an
octuple machine, producing forty-eight thousand
complete sixteen-page papers perhour,cut, pasted,
folded, and counted. But this machine can also be
adjusted to give ninety-six thousand eight-pagepapers per hour, if desired; or to combine the products of these different cylinders almost at will. In
current, every-day practice, a quadruple machine
which prints twenty-four thousand papers of eight
pages per hour, can be changed in a few minutes
so as to print twelve thousand papers of either sixteen pages, or of fourteen, or twelve, or ten. Another series of changes can also be arranged by
which the same press will print papers of eight
pages, or of six, or of four, separately cut, folded,
pasted, and counted. The practical result of all this
is to give the manager the power to determine at
the last moment the size of the paper he is going
to make that morning, with exact reference to the
amount of matter he has prepared to print. ForC 294 j




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
merly an important piece of news, the shipwreck
of an ocean steamer, the sudden death of a King
or President, coming into the office late at night,
compelled the choice between cutting the important news down or cutting everything else down
to make room for it. Now the manager has only to
order two or four or six more pages in his paper;
and the journal is none the less complete in the
ordinary news of the day because of the absorbing sensation that burst upon it an hour or two before the printed sheet must be in the hands of its
readers.
Obviously another improvement was needed before these could be utilized to the utmost. There
must be cheaper and quicker means of putting news
in type,to keep pace with these quicker andcheaper
facilities for printing it. That came in the form of a
practical abolition of movable typesetting in large
newspaper offices and the substitution of machinery producing bars that carry in solid metal a
whole line. As late as 1880, a first-class morning
newspaper, varying in size as was then customary
from eight to twelve pages, was compelled to employ a regular force of from seventy-five to one
hundred and fifty compositors. About that time the
multitude of experiments on typesetting machines,
on which many hundreds of thousands of dollars
had been lost by numbers of infatuated inventors
in different countries, began to give promise in the
United States of practical results. A long course of
baffling experiments still confronted the small
C 295 f




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
syndicate of newspaper publishers who undertook
to develop the system they thought the most hopeful, but at last, in July, 1886, the first installment
of an order was given for machines to replace hand
compositors throughout the general work ofa large
newspaper. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that
this order was given by a New York newspaper!
Within a year and a quarter the success in its
office was so clear that the other members of the
syndicate took the same step. The first paper outside the syndicate to introduce machine composition was an old New England one, "The Providence Journal," in 1889, and the next was "The
NewYork Herald," in l 890. By 900oo almost every
daily paper of the first and second class in the
United States had made the change from types set
by hand to machine composition of one sort or
another. Of the kind of machine first used in New
York, there are at present over five thousand in
daily use in American newspapers; and there are
several other kinds, also the result of American
invention, which are now endeavoring to dispute
the market. By these machines the cost of newspaper composition in well-organized offices is reduced to one-half the former figure, while the
capacity of each operator for rushing late matter
into print is more than trebled; in fact,in the case of
really rapid operators, is increased five or six fold.
If these details have not wearied you, we have
now reached a point where you can begin to estimate the startling material changes since 1880, in
C 296 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
the conditions under which newspapers are produced. The cost of the raw material has been reduced from two-thirds to three-fourths; the cost
of composition one-half, the cost of printing in a
greater proportion than either. Meantime the supply of the raw material has become almost unlimited; the speed with which news can be put in type
has been so greatly increased that columns and
pages of new matter, if need be, can be set within
an hour of the time when the paper must reach its
readers; and the speed with which printing can be
done has been so revolutionized that it is easier to
catch mails and news companies and newsboys
at the earliest hour desired with an edition of a
hundred thousand now than it used to be with an
edition of five or ten thousand.
Obviously, the business result from these revolutionary changes in the methods of the business
was inevitable no matter what the sentiments, or
wishes, or even principles of the men engaged in
it. Nothing could prevent either a great reduction
in price or a great increase in size, or both; and
nothing could then wholly avert the moral changes
which soon began to accompany this unexampled
facility of production. It is to these changes I wish
next to invite the special attention of any who think
of choosing the making of newspapers as their
vocation for life.
Reductions in price created a new and different
constitu eeoT
297 2




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
one-cent papers gained their main support by draw1n awame oT      atrons ote   g-pce journals. What they chiefly did was-FsT  Induce
miany of these to reain extra paper, and next to
Tfid3-ne  aswof   reaifeeA famous New York
editor long ago was complimented on his news
gathering, and then asked why he did not take
pains to show an equal superiority on his editorial
page. "Dom your fine writing," was the curt reply; "'The Smasher' is written for men that can't
read!" In the sense he meant, the chea p on
came to be largey aimed at "men that can't read,"
iat mleast at men who iai finot been habitua" and
rgularJeaders    the high-priced daily papers.
But these men would not buy even the cheapest
newspanpesy itaintmereeated them.
The bait must be something in the line of their existing tastes and appetites. This is not to say that
it must necessarily be low or degrading. That sort
of matter may be a bait too; but there are others.
Mankind is never as bad as the reformer pictures
it; and even among bad men, most of their tastes
may be not intrinsically or openly bad. But many
require high flavors. The newspaper that interests
tho         higj.plmaustron. If there has
b    m  wde r   it m_ u st not -blirnik a sing le g astly
detaiLhe                 fa     the language
a  ut the defaulter must be red hot, particularly if
he has heretoore     r espectale lor been a
church member. The paper must evince as relentless a curo  a    himy and his antecedents
-    ^    ^ ^,9




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
as the most eager gossip in the little local circle
t inew;iandmutdih s            artistic pride
in detailing and parading its discoveries in tAhe most
appeizing and suggestive way!
Most people like to see their names in printat least while the sensation remains a novelty. Most
people can likewise bear criticism of their neighbors with composure- especially if it is racy and
not too ill-natured. It was obvious, then, that in
developing new strata of readers for cheap daily
newspapers the editor could play successfully and
almost incessantly upon these two chords of human
nature. The appetite thus encouraged soon craved
yet greater supplies, so that the average American publisher is now nearly right when he says
that in practically taking the roof off the house of
everybody of any note, and in filling other parts
of his paper with inane "social" or other mention
of people of no note, he does not even yet satisfy the hunger and thirst for personalities which
fairly possess large classes of the community.
It is only candid to add, too, that this appetite
often fastens upon unsuspected victims. Many a
good man looks one way and rows another; leaves
with his family the decorous paper he praises
at the breakfast-table and picks up the one surcharged with personal tattle and sensation at the
news-stand, "just to see what scandal is stirring,"
on his way down town. The number of men who
cannot restrain their curiosity about what is in the
newspapers they disapprove of is a positive reveC 299 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
lation to the moralist who ventures to look into it.
If you will pardon another reference to my personal experience, I may mention that for a long
time I resisted the general tendency to extend the
daily publication over into Sunday. Nearly every
man I knew approved of this refusal to print a
Sunday paper. Old friends went out of their way to
congratulate me on thus setting my face against the
pernicious habit of Sunday publication. They hoped
I would never yield; it was a noble stand and gave
them yet greater confidence in my paper. Finally,
as they kept introducing the subject, I took to
explaining to these excellent and well-meaning
men that my noble stand seemed to result merely
in sending all my regular readers, when Sunday
came, over to one or another of my competitors;
and next, turning suddenly on each, I would ask,
" By the way, what paper doyou read on Sunday?"'
Then came stammering and hesitation, to be sure;
but not once during the years this went on, did I
fail to find that, with the single exception of some
of the clergy, the men who were exhorting me to
continue setting a noble example for Sabbath observance by not publishing on Sunday,were themselves quietly gratifying their own craving toknow
what was going on by reading some Sunday paper!
But reductions in price and increased facilities
for production on a large scale and of any size did
more than create a new and different constituency.
They changed the general character of American
newspapers, dear as well as cheap, conservative
I Soo ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
as well as reckless and sensational. They touched
papers that maintain high prices and people that
rarely or never read cheap papers.One effect, early
perceptible, began on the business side. Practically
no newspaper is sold at such an advance above the
cost of manufacture that all its expenses can be
defrayed out of the profit on circulation. There
must be added a certain revenue from advertising.
Now what the advertiser first thinks he wants,
roughly speaking, is publicity. It takes more thinking on the subject, more observation and experience, to satisfy him that what really does him
good is a particular kind of publicity. The natural
first impulse is to think that the paper you see in
the hands of every other man in the car is the
one in which to exploit your velvets, for example;
and the discovery comes at a later stage in business education that those men don't buy the velvets, that hardly one in ten of them has a family
that does, and that, at any rate, instead of taking
the paper home to their wives and daughters, they
throw it on the floor as they leave the car. The
sagacious advertiser understands perfectly that
his announcement does more good when it goes
to readers who have the buying habit, and the
means to indulge it; and therefore that character
of circulation is far more important than mere
quantity. But even he cannot help being affected
by the belief that double or treble as many people
will at any rate have his announcement in their
hands, if printed in the cheap papers. He knows
1 301 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
that another is read only by well-to-do persons,
among whom every reader, therefore, is a possible
if not a probable buyer; but he knows also that all
classes in this country contain buyers, and he
has likewise found out this habit, among the most
conservative classes, of gratifying their curiosityaway from home anyway-by reading the papers
they ostentatiously condemn. So he comes to attach
great importance to mere circulation; and concludes at any rate, that however much he may cultivate particular, choice preserves, it is unsafe not
also to sow broadcast.
The conservative publisher who has kept up his
/ standard, and perhaps also the price of his paper,
instantly feels the influence of that opinion. The
wish for large circulation is natural anyway,-the
audience fit but few is never the most attractive to
the lecturer, who has an eye to the receipts at the
door,-and so, under this stimulus, the passion
for circulation, simply as circulation, becomes with
many an obsession. This craze for circulation rather
than merit, for circulation in fact as the only thoroughly satisfactory test of merit, comes then to
control policy,- circulation among intelligent and
moral classes if practicable and convenient;- but at
any rate a great circulation, no matter among what
classes, as the final evidence of success, and the
only way to make the sale of a newspaper belowthe
acost of manufacture ultimately a source of profit.
The newspaper tendencies thus generated are
sometimes made more or less needful by the genC 302 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
eral demoralization of the public mind as to large
numbers. To nine men out of ten, sixty thousand
conveys, practically, almost the same idea as fifty
thousand. In fact, few in an average gathering have
a distinct intellectual perception of any number
much above ten thousand; and they instinctively
use and think of big figures rather than little ones.
How often is an audience honestly described by
a perfectly honest and conservative spectator as
containing fifteen hundred or two thousand people,
when the landlord knows that you can only put six
hundred chairs in the hall! So the newspaper whose
circulation isn't stated in these big figures comes
to be thought, even by the most intelligent, to be
painfully behind the age, and the newspaper publisher with the best intentions in the world is often
driven to all sorts of devices to make this unnatural expectation good. Here, then, is a source of
change in the character of American newspapers
as potent as any other.
We need take no account of the alleged newspapers that buy their circulation for the sake of
claiming it with advertisers. Such publications exist
by the dozen, and do have circulations running
from a hundred thousand up to a million. One small
sheetpublished once a month, or in conjunction
with kindred ones, once a week, whose nominal
price was twenty-five cents, was known to have
expended about $1.25 to secure every real subscriber it had on its books. Under the excessively
liberal postal laws of the United States, it was enE 303 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
abled to circulate an equal number of "sample
copies," the names for which it procured from the
shops receiving " orders by sample," and thus built
up an advertising medium for those shops, and developed a profitable business. A good many others
are treading the same path. It is the legitimate end
to the policy of selling at less than cost and taxing
the loss on the business community in the shape
of advertising.
But the real newspaper must depend on its contents to attract, at whatever costthe swarm of new
readers which it feels that the imaginative public,
to whom a quarter of a million are almost as fifty
thousand, expect of it. A disposition to lower the
character to catch the largest possible audience is
thus naturally suggested and is too often found
irresistible. Criminal news is reported in general,
not merely in notable cases, more fully and with
more piquant details than ever before; and the
whole continent is more apt to be drawn upon for
a  the supply. If a scandal is narrated, the soiled dove
is apt to be portrayed as one of the most rarely
beautiful of her sex; and many a sordid squabble
between shop-girls or denizens of the tenement
house in the hands of a skilful reporter takes on
the romance and radiance of the divine wrath between Greek goddesses. A similar exaggeration
often obtains in reporting any unusual occurrence,
or in quoting anything from a prominent man.
Competitors are apt to strive to outdo each other
in the unprecedented sensationalism with which
E 304 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
whatever is thought capable of bearing it is expanded; and even when the facts are not distorted,
the headings are made startling enough for the
downfall of a dynasty or a mortal disaster to the
Republic,-and you are lucky if you don't gel;
them in blood-red ink besides! 
Nothing is supposed to be more noble and courageous and perilous than for a newspaper to describe private and especially public peculations.
The cost of the composition bills in the long-drawn
accounts of some petty official delinquency are
thus sometimes as great as the amount of the default. To be ever alert to protect the interests of
the people is supposed to be the surest road to the
favor of the masses; and so, if the young reprobates in the reformatory accuse the superintendent
of treating them harshly, the Press is apt to be on
the boys' side, and it may go hard with that superintendent if he cannot do what the common law
never required, prove his innocence. If some pauper can tell a plausible tale of bad food or severe requirements about work, he has enthusiastic champions in the Press. Whoever is accused of doing
anything that can be criticised in the administration
of charity or the regulation of discipline, or even
in the ordinary enforcement of the laws about the
unfortunate, or the criminal,or the pauper, or about
a workingman or a trades-union, will do well to
look promptly to his defences. An enlightened
Press, the palladium of the liberties of all, but especially of those who do least to deserve or protect
C 305 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
them, and who presumably have the most friends
that buy cheap newspapers, will be upon his trail,
and, under a plausible charge,will be apt to assume
him guilty till he is overwhelmingly proved innocent-and sometimes even longer!
And so again circulation is           ess
acounts of chowderjrties, excursions dances of
the Eighth Ward Rounders, meetings of patriotic
societies women's debating societies, grandsons
of thirrandathers parades, charities, public
complaints about charities, scrambles for petty
oflfiea  Qgyvery conceivable form of the multiplied activities of an age when all the world seems
to             rhantingto   into cities, and live in the
glare of electric light, anct move to the accompaniment of brass bands and be tortured with unrest
iFteverjft out of public sight and notice except
when asleep.
It would be unjust not to give the other side of the
picture. While these traits of the American newspaper have been increasingly developed under the
cheapness of production and expansion of facilities and craze for mere circulation, there are other
changes as marked and most beneficial. The flippancy of our newspapers, which so vexed the soul
of Matthew Arnold, certainly continues, as well
as their deplorable addiction to the use and invention of slang. But they are more generally well
written than they were fifteen years ago; and are
often more attractively arranged. Tjiibr of
E 306 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
young college-bred men whom they enlist gws.rows..^,
steaily, larger. They' are better informed on the
subjects they discuss, or at least they have ac-.
quired a.diin g nized fr better means of gathering information. They glean news with amazing
thoroughness, and exhaust it from the most secluded and guarded hiding-places with the mysterious energy of the air pump. Whoever has had
to do with public affairs has learned that as all
nature is in conspiracy against a vacuum, so, under
the guidance of the newspapers, the whole world
around them is in conspiracy against a secret. They
cover the earth with their correspondents. They
study the progress and even the politics of all nations. They give foreign news by cable with tenfold the fullness of a few years ago. Almost every
first-class paper has its own special cable letter
from London or Paris. In fact, the ocean lines are
used as freely now by the Press as the line to
Washington formerly was.A rate of fifty-five cents
a word from China, and of far more from the Philippines, does not check the full daily reports. Transformations and rivalries in Associated Press organizations have made it easier to start newspapers,
and easier to secure a good news service from all
the world. As for our own country, telegraphs and
telephones, in the energetic hands of the Press,
have made it from ocean to ocean a mere sounding-board. The newspapers followall explorations,
terrestrial or sidereal. They watch every inventor,
and tell the marvels of every discovery.They culC 307 J




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
tivate systematically and assiduously the fields of
Literature, Art, Science, Music, and the Drama.
They present letters of adventure and pictures day
by day of the business world. They give details of
political, legislative, judicial, financial, maritime,
railway, social, educational, reformatory, charitable, and religious movements, especially in the
Sunday issues, in a profusion, variety, vivacity, and
popular attractiveness never before approached.
There has been an extraordinary increase in the
attention given to the interests of women, and also
in the space surrendered, even in the most sedate
of journals, to every conceivable variety of sport.
All kinds of special interests find constant and copious notice,-bicycles and bicycle riders, automobiles, their makers, patterns, drivers, and records,
chess, checkers, bridge-whist, spelling reform, and
every other crank reform, amateur photography,
and so on and on to anything and everything new
that may be found under the sun. Id, ngeat
A~me     che~romi    e       good deallike the
great "Department Store,"-a sort of universal
provider.
Inthe villages and smaller towns scarcely anybody, fifteen or twenty years ago, habitually took
more than one large daily paper, and many were
satisfied with only weeklies. Even in the larger
cities, the average well-to-do householder was
often content with one morning paper, to which he
sometimes, but not in the majority of cases, added
another for the evening. Now few readers of the
E 3o8 j




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
prosperous class get on with less than one of each
for the home, and another, preferably of different
politics, for the office or the street car. Orders
from New Yorkers to serve in all six or seven daily
papers are not uncommon enough to attract notice;
and even the children and servants are found with
their favorite journals. Never since the first daily
was printed did they give so much for the money,
ande r were they so much sought after. Everybody reads tnem      nearly everybodyramong
the more-eAucated claset laeast, abuses them.
It would be unjust to say that the influence of
the Press at large has declined in proportion as its
circulation has increased, and its resources have
expanded, and people have acquired the habit of
reading both sides. Yet with all this superfluous
richness of material, facility of output, and enormous increase of circulation, it must be obvious
to every one that the influence of the modern
newspaper has not advanced in equal proportion,
nor has its general standing in the community
improved. To be the editor of any great newspaper
in the past waiT  bfSrifofisN;t it pifs
one at once upon his defence. What sort of a newspaper is it, is the question everywhere involuntarily asked, and a question that must be answered
before one's status is fixed.
When the papers show reasonable agreement
they still carry the whole community with them
with practical unanimity. The most corrupt and
powerful combination cannot long stand, even yet,
C 309 ]




RECENT CHANGES IN THE PRESS
against a united Press. Government by newspaper
is in that case, more than ever before, the most
powerful, the most resistless form of government
in the known world. But when they differ radically
on any great public question, people give less serious thought to what any of them say, and often
give less to the question itself. In the multitude of
contradictory voices one neutralizes another, and
the reader thinks of something else.
Meantime the influence of the Press, if measured merely by the frequent appearance of actual
subservience to it, has been enhanced. Itj mav turn
out, like the pagan god, to be all powerful, but at
ab7ratei is known tobe yu gly. s the outward
d   R fert wis accmaied          i    which
is becoming unfortunately common, and even by
a distinct dlslike which, in spite of the supposed
imprudenceiiSnow more often openly expressed
tbh'orneyThe possibility of more stringent
repressive measures, social or legal, for false news
and unwarranted personality is sometimes discussed, but not often seriously approached.


C 310 i




AN EDITOR'S REFLECTIONS
IV
JOURNALISTIC DUTIES AND
OPPORTUNITIES








JOURNALISTIC DUTIES AND
OPPORTUNITIES
E have considered what American newspapers are, and some of the influences that
have brought them to their present state. I am
venturing now to add something about what they
may be, and the influences that may shape their
changes and development; as well as a few hints
as to the qualifications likely to be most useful for
those who mean to engage in making them.
There used to be a tendency to levity in some
skeptical quarters throughout the country when
" the stories of Washington correspondents " were
mentioned. Perhaps it may have been turned in
later years on New York instead of Washington.
At any rate, a club of New York correspondents
invited a multitude of people, of all sorts and conditions, and from all parts of the country, to tell
them "How the influence of the Press can be increased?" Now it was certainly a significant fact
that such a body should ask a question implying
that the influence of the Press needed to be increased. Was it not equally significant, as a hint
at the prevailing state of the public mind, that in
more than half the great number of replies there
was found, in one form or another, some expression of the common idea that what the Press most
needed was to tell the truth and be fair?That, for
example, was practically the response of three men
so well known and with such widely divergent
C 313 3




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
points of view as His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons,
His Excellency, Wu Ting Fang, and the free lance
who is fighting on two continents to avoid the disgrace of dying rich, Andrew Carnegie,- Catholic,
Confucian, and Agnostic in absolute accord.
Well, their prescription may be right, even if
the diagnosis be not uniformly exact. And, in any
case, it is a fact of ill-omen for the American Press
that large and influential sections of the community have come to persuade themselves that very
many newspapers do not try either to tell the truth
or to be fair, except in so far as they feel sure
it will pay. Yet this is to judge the newspapers
with more unfairness and untruthfulness than any
of them ordinarily display. The real sin, even with
the most reckless newspaper, is rarely a deliberate desire to circulate false news instead of true.
In the long run that is not profitable. If readers
find too often that they have been flagrantly and
intentionally deceived, even the most sensationloving are apt to go somewhere else. Far more
commonly it is the desire to be first, either with
the news or with something resembling the news
nearly enough to leave their readers to believe
that they had the "substance of it," and had it
first. The directors of the Associated Press have
lately had a curious complaint and received a curious explanation. The complaint by members was
that their correspondence from the Isle of Wight
and by cable was so slow that they were half an
hour behind their rivals in announcing the death
C 314 ]




AND OPPORTUNITIES
of the most venerated and most generally beloved
woman in the world. The explanation of the general manager was that the rivals guessed when
dissolution would come, and blundered into fixing the time over half an hour too soon! Into the
merits of that ghastly dispute far be it from me
to enter. But the fact that it exists is enough to
illustrate a common origin of the discrepancies
and inaccuracies with which newspapers are taxed.
They think they must have a big circulation; to
that end they must be first with the news; if a
thing is pretty sure to happen, it is more enterprising to announce it half an hour too soon than
not to be ahead of your rival; and the reading
public is so eager to hear some new thing, and
so good natured about small tricks and inaccuracies, that "pretty near" becomes for circulation
purposes good enough.
Does that statement, which I believe to be quite
fair, leave the fault wholly on the shoulders of the
newspapers themselves? To pursue the inquiry
would raise a very large question between the
community and the newspapers, and perhaps we
may now give it a little attention.
The thermometer does not make the heat it indicates, nor the barometer create the storm it foretells. No more does the newspaper at first create
the demand it supplies. And yet it is something
more than a mere register of existing conditions.
The very law of its being leads to its furnishing
C 315 ]




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
all it can, and ahead of all others if it can, of the
kind of matter it has reason to think people like.
It over-supplies the existing demand, in the belief
that this will increase the demand. And it does.
If the average New York reader had been told,
twenty years ago, what sort of intelligence he
would now be found searching his morning paper
for, he would have resented the imputation. But
use doth breed a habit in the man; and the tattle
regarded as impertinent and offensive, twenty
years ago, is now relished as amusing personal
detail, showing its purveyor to be a "live, up-todate" newspaper. The daily journals are thus actually changing the taste and the standards of
large classes of the community. They do more.
The details of one crime assiduously advertised
often precede another closely enough to provoke
the suspicion, at least, that they suggested it. The
tattle about Miss Smith's "coming-out ball" inspires a wild desire among the Browns, Blacks,
and Joneses to get more columns of vapid notice
for their balls. In a thousand ways the newspaper
and the community act and react upon each other.
It is true that the newspaper only furnishes what
the community wants,- remember that when you
assail the editor,-but it is also true that the wants
of the community are enlarged by the newspaper
pabulum it feeds on; and that is something for
the editor to remember! If the paper is bad, that
is the fault of the community that supports it; but
the bad paper tends to make the community worse,: 316 J




AND OPPORTUNITIES
and that is the fault of the men who issue it. Less
shameless readiness to furnish bad things because
there is a market for them is certainly needed
in the newspaper business; but less sanctimonious pretence on the part of the people who cry out
against the badness of the newspapers and yet
keep on buying and reading them would also be
in order!
When a Tweed ring is exposed or the corruption of a state government arouses protest, severe
moralists are in the habit of saying that the people,
after all, get just as good government as they
deserve, and will have better when they deserve
it. One form of government in this country is the
government by newspaper, and as to that the saying is certainly true. A moment's reflection will
convince even the sternest moralist, that till publishing newspapers ceases to be a matter of business, and becomes merely a species of religion or
" good works," it is difficult to hold the newspaper
rigidly to a standard which the community does
not want and will not maintain. Free your minds
about their shortcomings if you like, but do not
forget that, whatever their faults, your community
chooses to sustain them, and that most of them are
surely printing what they think they have reason
to believe the largest numbers desire.
I said the most of them. There are newspapers
which deliberately resist certain tendencies and
even demands of their readers. There are, in fact,
E 317 ]




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
many newspapers that have long done the community a service in this regard for which they have
little recognition and no gratitude. As far back as
1879 I ventured to make some remarks on this
point, which I am going to take the liberty of repeating here:
" The evil tendencies of the Press in our day are to be
seen plainly enough; they have been seen in all days,
since the first newspaper was made. It even works more
evil now than it ever wrought before, because its influence is more widespread; but it also works more good,
and its habitual attitude is one of effort toward the best
its audience will tolerate. There is not a newspaper to-day
in New York, faulty as they all are, that is not better
than its audience. There is not an editor in New York
who does not know the fortune that awaits the man there
who is willing to make a daily paper as disreputable and
vile as a hundred and fifty thousand readers would be
willing to buy. It is the newspaper opportunity of the
time - the only great opportunity that has come since
the concentration of capital and mechanical facilities gave
the monopoly of the present field to the existing journals.
Several of these might take it; the editor of every one
of them knows he is making a better paper than his constituency would like, and that he might add a half to his
circulation by making it worse; every one of them knows
that a less scrupulous rival may come to do what he refuses. It is with an ill grace that theoretical reformers
reproach these men for lowering the newspaper standard,
and making journalism a curse instead of a blessing.7
Well, nobody will get me to admit that those remarks come now, as a harsh critic has said, under
C 318 J




AND OPPORTUNITIES
the head of fulfilled prophecy! But it may be admitted as a thing less liable to dispute that the statement is still true as to the papers of to-day. There
is a large public yet, ready to have them worse!
It is rarely difficult, in this great,easy-going, goodnatured, curious country, to make money at first
by being more reckless and lively than your neighbors. Possibly, after a time, in this industry as in
others, there may come a reaction, springing from
that common bane of the manufacturer, over-production! Does it ever occur to you, when you hear
a specially bitter outcry against newspapers in
any community, that it must come dangerously
near representing one of two things, cant or imbecility, and may represent both? If the people
who raise the outcry keep on supporting the papers
they rail at, it is cant. If these papers are really
as bad as they are painted, it is also imbecility.
For libel at least is a punishable offence, and the
community that groans under it, but will not lift
its hand to protect itself, seems impotent and contemptible.
Here, however, we encounter a curious state of
cross-purposes. Not half enough libel suits are
brought; and yet most of those that are brought
are unjust. People who have character to protect
resort too rarely to the law against libel; but those
whose character could hardly be injured are the
first, under the guidance of lawyers looking for
their pay to a share in the verdict, to institute libel
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suits as a means of speculating on inadvertent
errors. Unhappily, the curious state of the law and
the lingering effect of old decisions that ill-fit modern conditions combine to promote this unfortunate
reversal of what every jurist and every good citizen has at heart. It is the rule of " compensatory
damages" that makes the law which honest men
hesitate to use in their own just defence, a perfect
fountain of speculation for men who have no character to lose, no shrinking from disagreeable surroundings, and consequently no reluctance to enter
the courts on an ill-odored quest for cash.
Take an old case to illustrate this perversity of
law. A newspaperpublished that a certain state oflicial had been intoxicated. That was true. Unfortunately it was misled (by his general character or
by some accident) into adding "Ion a certain public occasion." That was not true. The newspaper
was able to prove that the man was habitually and
grossly intemperate, and to adduce numerous and
conspicuous cases in which he had thus displayed
himself; and it not unnaturally claimed that he had
little character left to be damaged by an unimportant inaccuracy of detail, and that at any rate the
damages for such a slip should be nominal. But the
court sternly held that these facts made no difference; that they could not even be laid before the
jury; the man was not proved to have been intoxicated on that occasion, malice must therefore be
presumed, and the damages might, in the jury's
discretion, even be exemplary. And so the state
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
official found that his bad character, which naturally led people into such errors about his conduct,
was a gold mine for him.
In another old case, a woman had been accused
of certain misconduct in certain company. The only
error was as to the company, and the person thus
wrongly involved made no complaint. The misconduct of the accused woman was frequent and
notorious, and the newspaper was able to prove
it ad nauseam. But she sued for the damage to her
character by the unimportant inaccuracy in the
newspaper's statement, and recovered for it as if
she had been a saint. In another case- it was published in a multitude of papers that a man had defrauded his employer in a certain way. The statement was almost certainly true, though there was
unexpected difficulty in getting legal evidence of
it. It could be proved that he had defrauded him in
other ways, and had defrauded other employers
before him; but for the purpose of estimating the
value of the character he had left to be libelled,
none of these facts could be considered, and he
got exemplary damages from one newspaper after
another till his bad character turned out far more
lucrative to him than a good one could ever have
been.
In another case a New York paper found in the
Treasury Department, in a place involving the
handling of public money, a grossly unfit person,
and gave public warning that, when in the employ
of his own state, his firm had defrauded its treas-: 321 7




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
ury, that he had admitted it, and had been in prison
"for the offence." The Secretary of the Treasury
was a political opponent of the newspaper, but
an honest man, the late Daniel Manning, and he
promptly turned the fellow out. The latter sued the
newspaper for damages. The substantial allegations were proved, but it was found that the imprisonment was for another offence. Thereupon,
the form that justice took in the state and city of
New York was that the thief was held entitled to
recover, and he did get a verdict for nine thousand
dollars! That was the price a paper was asked to
pay a thief for having tried honestly to serve the
public, and discharge a plain public duty by letting
a high official know that he had the thief at his
money drawer.
All this may not be justice, but there is no doubt
it has long been law. Happily a change seems to
have come. In a recent case a man who was inadvertently reported as having committed suicide,
brought suit for the scandalous charge. The newspaper had simply been misled by the blunder of a
distant agent, without the suspicion of malice. But
when the man undertook to speculate on the cruel
injury to his character from the story that he had
killed himself, and demanded exemplarydamages,
the newspaper succeeded in getting permission to
prove that his character had at any rate not been
good enough on more than one occasion to keep
him from killing other people. For once the poor
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
yers were overruled by the presiding judge, who
uttered merely the common sense of mankind in
saying that in an action for libel the damages could
be properly assessed only when the jury knew
how capable of injury the man's character was;
so that, as he heldl"They may intelligently fix
its pecuniary value by the extent of its injury." In
another case a woman, inaccurately reported to
have eloped with a certain man, recovered a heavy
verdict for damages,and the highest court affirmed
the judgment.Then it was discovered that she had
been living with him before the alleged elopement,
and thereupon a new trial was granted, the court
holding that while the new facts did not establish
the truth of the published story about an elopement, they did prove the vice which was the substance of the story, and might therefore be properly shown in reduction of damages.
I am able to cite only one other recent ruling of
similar liberality, and as I think of substantial justice, by an eminent judge. It was from a man who
now ornaments the Supreme Bench of the United
States, and to whom Yale has recently listened
with profit. Mr. Justice Brewer, while still sitting
in circuit, found that a published accusation of an
infamous nature against a woman could not be sustained, but permitted the newspaper to show other
acts on her part which indicated that her reputation
could not have been injured by the publication, as
that of a good woman would have been.
Without questioning in the least the learning or: 323 7




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
uprightness of many judges who are still apt to
hold differently, I venture to point out that a reasonable liberality as to the admission of evidence
about general character in the case of inadvertent
and unimportant inaccuracies like these, would be
in the interest of the honest Press and of the community that wants an honest Press; while it would
be against the interest only of speculative rogues
and their lawyers; and that severity of construction and promptness of prosecution against deliberate and persistent libels on upright citizens would
be most helpful to the same public interests.
Please to notice that in every one of these cases
the newspaper was trying to do what every good
citizen would regard as proper, if not actually its
duty, in exposing or censuring wrong-doing; and
in each its mistakes, regrettable as they were, did
no harm unless to bad people, and even did them
no substantial harm. The machinery of the law was
thus at the service of the unworthy, while those
chiefly in danger from it were the ones who bad
been trying to do right, and serve the public welfare. It used to be more costly for a railroad to take
off some of a man's fingers or toes than to kill him
outright. So the law and the courts and the public
disposition seem to combine in making it more dangerous now to fall into a mistake about the precise
variety or date of the crime a notorious rogue committed on some particular day in his variegated
career, than to perpetrate almost any libel upon
a good man. Ten suits for such inadvertencies
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
are brought and prosecuted to a profitable conclusion for one that is brought by a reputable person
against a paper of undoubted ill-will for a real libel.
How can you stimulate the Press to tell the truth
and be fair, while you let the deliberately untruthful and unfair alone, yet hold those who are fair
in intention and only untruthful by misadventure
and about people of bad character, to a costly responsibility, amounting to persecution?
In younger and perhaps callow days, I ventured to formulate the position of the respectable Press on this subject; and in spite of all adverse circumstances believe that, if the community
and the courts would only encourage it, by far the
greater part of the substantial Press of America
would still cherish the same wishes and gladly
pursue the same policy:
" No higher service can be rendered journalism to-day
than by making it responsible for what it says, and
giving the humblest citizen whom its gigantic power
may purposely wrong, easy and cheap justice. Make
libel suits easy; make them cheap and speedy; let them
lie only in cases where the publication was palpably malicious, or fair and prompt correction was, on due application and proof, refused.... It would be a deserved
discipline, if we have done any man a wrong and refused
correction. It would make easier the business of enforcing caution and fair dealing on the hundred assistants
whose several judgments must be more or less trusted in
making up every issue. It would give to every word we
did utter an additional weight, and it would deprive the
bad men we expose of their present ready answer, 'Oh,
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
that does n't amount to anything; the newspapers abuse
everybody.' It is an ill day for journalism when people do
not care what the newspapers say against them. It is an
ill day for the country when people do care and cannot get
their wrongs redressed. It will be better for both when
justice is cheap and journalism is just."
To that old effort to state the best aspirations of the
Press let me only add that the community has
something to do in the matter besides grumbling.
When it shows that it does want real libels punished, and does not want to punish good newspapers unduly for accidents in the course of their
honest efforts to deal justly with misconduct in
office or demoralization in society, it will have a
better chance for seeing such newspapers as in its
better moments it thinks it wants!
Well, what are these likely to be? We have seen
the startling changes of the last twenty years.
What are you to expect and prepare for in the
next twenty?
We had lately an interesting illustration of what
a very successful English publisher thought an
American newspaper ought to be. As has happened
before, his precept and his example did not quite
go together. What he chiefly recommended was
brevity and vivacity of matter, a convenient summary and index to the news, and greater compactness of form. What he did was to use as much paper
as ever and ask for more; throw away a fifth of it
in extra margins; give rather less satisfactorily the
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
same sort of reading-matter as before, but make
it much harder to find, and then tell the news over
again in a summary drawn out to unusual length.
What was good in his experiment was not new,
and what was new was-well, he was a stranger
in the land!
On its physical side, his experiment of giving
the present page of the New York paper another
fold and thus doubling the number of pages was
suggested thirty years ago by several American
editors,-Samuel Bowles and Henry Watterson
among them, to say nothing of a third,-and was
in some cases tried. The smaller form of page was
adopted about that time in London by "The Pall
Mall Gazette," and afterward by " The St. James
Gazette" and other evening papers. It was long
ago taken for weekly and semi-weekly papers,
secular and religious, in this country, and more recently by "The London Times" for its weekly.
But the notion of adapting it to daily use by firstclass American papers confronts at once the objection that the busy reader does not like it so well
since he has double as many pages to turn to find
the news over which he only wishes to cast a hurried glance; and the publisher does not like it so
well because he loses so much time in making up
double as many pages, and so much white paper in
double as many margins. The offset is the greater
convenience of handling, especially in crowded
places; but the net result is that, unless the great
American daily papers are to be much reduced in
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
total bulk, their pages are not likely to be made
only half the present size.
It is safer to predict that the better class of daily
newspapers and their readers may come to a mutual understanding that less quantity and better
quality would be mutually advantageous." The Saturday Review" once called Macaulay the father of
picturesque reporters, and Dickens has often been
called their prince. No doubt these are ambitious
models; but the Press that sent MacGahan to a
European war, and Harding Davis and Bigelow to
an American one, and has developed so many of
our most popular authors from its ranks, can rise
above the present wordy and tedious level of telling the news whenever the editors and their readers agree that it is desirable. In that direction lies
one of the best hopes for the future of the best
newspapers. Fewer words; shorter stories, better
told; fewer eighteen dollars a week reporters,who
only write by main strength and awkwardness,
and more men who have learned the capacities of
the English tongue; fewer men whose chief idea
is to rake in all the rubbish they can, and label it
with startling head-lines,and more men who know
what is worth telling and know how to single it out
from the mass of rubbish; fewer mere photographers in nonpareil, whose sole idea is to set down
in fine type everything they see, and more artists
who know what to see and how to make,in words,
a picture of it,-that is the line of progress for an
intelligent Press,worthy of an intelligent commu[ 328 j




AND OPPORTUNITIES
nity. But first of all, the public must make up its
mind that the merit of a paper, its enterprise, its
resources, and its importance are not determined
by the number of its pages; that paper is made
out of cordwood and costs two cents a pound, that
type is set by steam, and that white sheets can be
run through printing-machines in any number of
pages you want in any big office at the rate of a
hundred thousand an hour. If the people continue
to want quantity, as they certainly seem to do now,
the quantity will no doubt continue to be printed,
though Sheridan's ghost should hiss in every editor's ear that easy printing, even more than easy
writing, makes curst hard reading.
But under no circumstances can Americans be
expected to return to the old idea of a paper kept
small, because rigidly confined to a few classes of
subjects thought likely to prove of general interest. The very people who think they would like
that would be the first to complain, one if his papers
omitted the report of the cotton market at New
Orleans, in which he had an interest; or another
if it missed the detail of Marconi's last idea about
launching his messages without wires through
ether, or the price of Connecticut leaf, or the committee's scheme about sailing-ships, in the subsidy
bill, or the successful candidates for the Yale boatcrew. A great newspaper that has once assumed
toward the intelligent classes throughout a densely
populated and highly civilized region the part of
a daily compendium of current information, about
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
their complex and multitudinous activities, cannot
safely abandon its field. The old notion that anybody is going to read the daily paper through was
abandoned a century ago. The notion that anybody will read through even what is sometimes
described as its general reading-matter must be
abandoned, too. The great daily is more and more
used as an encyclopedia. Each reader turns to it for
what he wants, and skips the rest. The paper does
its duty best in these special fields when it makes
its information complete, accurate, and accessible.
The reader makes the best use of it when he learns
the art of skipping, and spends no time in the idle
business of aimlessly and thoughtlessly glancing
through what he does not seek.
The price for a great daily newspaper, in the
next twenty years, can hardly undergo as violent
changes in the conditions affecting it as during the
last twenty. One point about it seems clear. It ought
to be, and probably will be, a price that covers the
cost. If a newspaper is to have the independence
its readers desire and public interest demands, it
ought not to furnish its manufactured product to
the public so far below the cost of manufacture
that bankruptcy can be avoided only by taxing the
deficit on large business houses in the shape of
great advertisements. The general run of ordinary
advertisements that any fairly managed paper is
likely to receive may properly enough be estimated, along with the profits on sales, in fixing
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
the price. But when a price is fixed far below what
receipts warrant, on the expectation of unusual
advertisements to be drawn in from a few great
shops, whether because of more circulation expected to be gained or for other considerations, the
paper then, instead of being an independent exponent of public interests, is measurably in the
hands of the few big shops, and is hardly more
independent than their floor-walkers.
The most conspicuous effort this country has seen
at publishing the largest papers for the smallest
price was in Chicago. For some years those great
journals sold their issues of twelve, fourteen, and
sixteen pages, and in some instances far more, at
half a cent apiece, to the newsdealers, who took
the bulk of the editions, while for the small number retailed over their own counters they received
one cent. After a time the results were acknowledged to be so unsatisfactory that they trebled
their wholesale and doubled their retail price. In
New York there has even been a proposition for a
small paper to be retailed at half a cent, and wholesaled at a quarter of a cent, and the enterprising
speculator was only hindered by the lack of halfcent currency. No doubt it could be made to live
after a fashion, and even to make money. But in
the long run, the intelligent man, who values his
newspaper, and wishes to feel that it is not in need
of being influenced by any but public motives, is
not unwilling to pay for it at least the cost of its
manufacture, even though that should amount to
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
as great a sum for a whole week's supply of dailies
as he pays his barber every morning.
It is distinctly to the advantage of every community that its serious and trusted papers should
be rich and prosperous. The community's interests
then are their interests. What helps everybody
helps them, and they have no need of any other
kind of help. Their first inquiry when any new
proposition is presented is naturally whether it is
or is not in the public interest. Their opinions can
be accepted as honestly formed on the basis of
that inquiry, and their help can be confidently assumed for every good cause. It is also to the advantage of the community if the owners of these
papers are strong enough to be independent of
immediate returns. There is many a popular flurry
when a strong newspaper can render the greatest
service by resisting the sudden gust, at whatever
cost, and patiently biding its time. More than one
newspaper whose fame is a part of our American
inheritance would have had a less enviable record
if it had been without money in its purse when it
faced angry subscribers or discontented advertisers
or both, and defiantly told them, in the memorable
words of a New York merchant, that its goods
were for sale, but not its principles.
But this pecuniary strength is less helpful to the
community when the newspapers,however strong,
are owned by millionaires, or by combinations of
capitalists whose connection is more or less secret,
and who make this investment of their money
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
primarily for the influence they think it may give
them in some way in the furtherance of their personal ends. The best reason for owning a newspaper is because a man likes the vocation, feels
some fitness for it, has a high conviction of its influence and opportunity for good,deliberately prefers
it, as under such circumstances he well may, to any
of the professions, and wishes to make it the business of his life. Then everything is plain and above
board. His relation to the community and the policy
his paper advocates is established and perfectly understood. The journal becomes, if successful,one of
the fixed public institutions of the city, as much as
the City Hall, and often immeasurably more useful. The worst reason for owning a newspaperfrom the point of view of the public interestis because a man thinks it must then grind his
axes, while he remains in the background. And the
next worst condition of newspaper ownership is
when a young man without capital persuades a
number of ambitious business men and politicians
to subscribe a capital for him, and is thus secretly
committed to grinding axes in turn for any or all
of them.
A gentleman whom about half the American people
have at one time or another wanted to make President, has lately expressed some views on this subject, quite judicious in the main, though pushed in
some particulars to extremes which greater experience would correct. Thus, while the control of
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a present and responsible proprietor is always, as
he says, an advantage, it is not so clear that the
paper will command confidence and possess influence in proportion to the extent to which it constantly reflects in its columns the strong individuality of one man. It is quite true that people used
to say, "That paper means something, it has a
man behind it." But the great journal of to-day has
ceased to be a one-man paper, exactly as the travellers to the town it is published in have ceased
to ride in a one-horse coach. For purely reformatory and propagandist purposes, intense individualityin the Press has no doubt played a great part.
But it never made the greatest newspapers. Paris
long had intense individuality in its Press. London
scarcely ever. Does any one doubt which had the
more permanent, more trusted, more powerful,
and more useful journals?
There is an opposite notion which also has its
advantages. When you are confronted now with
the idea that the intensely individual paper " means
something, it has a man behind it," that certainly
does imply, after all, that it has the whims, the
infirmities, the prejudices, the personal aims, and
even the idiosyncrasies of one man permeating the
whole sheet. But when you try the other extreme,
and rejoice that " the paper means something, it has
a party behind it," you array at once another class
of drawbacks. The party organ must reflect, not
necessarily the settled convictions of the men who
own or the men who make it, but the wishes for
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
the moment of the managers for the moment in
the party to which it is attached. Now intelligent,
conscientious support of the general policy of a
party is a patriotic duty, since in such a government
as ours results can be attained only through parties, and the man who prides himself on his freedom from all party ties or affiliations is simply
boasting of his own impotence. Of all follies that
masquerade in the name of Reform, the most pernicious is the idea that the editor can vindicate his
independence only by sitting on the fence, and
throwing stones with impartial vigor, alike at friend
and foe. But unintelligent, submissive support of
details of party policy, against judgment or without consideration, merely because the managers
ask it, is another sure way to reduce the paper to
impotence. It is a noble thing to have a great party
behind a great paper in a worthy cause. It is something quite different to have the temporary party
managers standing over the paper, prescribing for
purely temporary purposes, measures or methods
contrary to its convictions,-the paltriest of careers
for an editor, the most pitiful role for a newspaper,
and the surest way to minimize its influence and
gain distrust. Not one paper, umistakably of the
first rank, is to be found now in that class, either
in Europe or America.
We all know how admirably old maids' children are brought up. Well, all over this nation are
multitudes of old maids diligently engaged in editing the daily newspapers. Every now and then
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
one of them sets out to tell us how "the ideal
paper" is to be edited. But whose ideal? Is it the
ideal of a person who knows either the possibilities or the limitations of the newspaper field, who
knows either the reading public or himself? Is it
the same ideal the subscriber is looking for? It
turned out lately in Kansas that it was the ideal
of a man with very few ideas in his head, and
those mostly no better than they should be. You
do not need to be told that that experiment ended
in a failure so absolute as to be grotesque,-excepting as an advertisement. Another of them has
but one prescription —make it truly Christian. In
the highest and best sense I hope the Press of the
country tends to be Christian, —in the sense that it
loves good, and hates evil and assails it. But only
a very unworldly good man, or a very worldly
schemer, proposes to make it Christian in the sense
of long prayers in the market-places, and of compassing sea and land, like the Pharisees, to make
one proselyte. This idea will never die out, for
there is too much unsophisticated goodness in the
world,and too much sophisticated selfishness eager
to prey upon it. Long ago the experiment of a religious metropolitan daily was tried in the foundation
of " The New York World." It was tried again in
the liberal subventions given by the Remingtons
and other noble men to "The New York Witness."
From time to time the experiment has been renewed,there and elsewhere, always with the same
monotonous result, —the last two notable cases
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
appearing, curiously enough, in Kansas City and
in London. While the race of unworldly good men
flourishes, the idea will revive from time to time,
and their good money will continue to be sent
after the bad.
Another favorite prescription of the old maid
editors of both sexes is to leave politics out. There
are two sides to that, the patriotic side and the
practical one. On the first, how could a man, fit
to be intrusted with the responsibilities and opportunities of a great daily, in a free government,
deliberately neglect the highest duty devolving
upon every citizen, the duty tersely summed up
two thousand years ago as the " care that the Republic take no harm"? On the other side, it is only
needful to say that statistics of circulation combine
with the daily teachings of personal observation
to prove that there is no other subject which the
people of a free government so imperatively demand in their newspapers as details of political
movements. A Presidential Convention sends up
the circulation quicker and with more absolute
certainty than a great battle, or an ocean disaster,
or a huge fire, or even the most offensive scandal!
The highest figures attained are those of the issue
announcing the result of an election. Another of
the demands is that the paper shall be always, in
all things, in every issue and in every item, strictly
accurate. I vote for that myself. What is more, I
will undertake to furnish it. I will only ask, as the
single prerequisite, that you furnish me for the
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
office staff a hundred men who never make a mistake, who always see the same thing exactly in
the same light with everybody else, and who will
be able to tell it as quick as the quickest; and then
that you will distribute about the globe for me a
hundred more,scattered from the lobbies of Washington,Westminster,and the Palais Bourbon to the
headquarters in Venezuela and the Philippines,and
the palaces in Stamboul and Peking, with the instruction that, with all their accuracy, these children of light must never be an hour behind the
sons of Belial in turning in their stories.
Let no one imagine that I am trying to excuse
perversions of the truth or justifying inaccuracy.
I am only taking the liberty to remind you that perfection is not in man. Every lawyer knows that if
three men witness a quarrel between a cab-driver
and a drayman in the street, and undertake to give
a minute account of every detail of the affair, there
will invariably be discrepancies in their statements.
The best intentions in the world would not save
them. They would at least catch the exhortations
to the impenitent horse in different phraseology,
and one man would have distinguished them quite
clearly, oftener than either of the others heard
them. When a hundred men are working under
high pressure at midnight, and dealing with news
from hundreds more, scattered all over the globe,
minor inaccuracies in statement can no more be
abolished before the paper goes to press than can
an occasional typographical error.
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AND OPPORTUNITIES
Print only news that 's fit to print is another exhortation with which the editors of the country are
familiar, and which I think a large part of them sincerely desire to obey. But what is fit to print, and
who shall judge? Is the average, merely human
editor sinful above all others if he accepts the judgment of his readers, and in the long run gives them
what he sees they are resolved to have, rather than
let them go off to his rival for it? "All the news
that's fit to print" is a taking motto, much seen of
late, and in no possible way to be undervalued or
depreciated. And yet who can follow it? The world
would not hold the pages to which that paper
would spread. Every new thing that happens is
news; and bad as the world is, an overwhelming
majority of the things that happen are fit to be told.
Yet ninety-nine one-hundredths of it never ought
to be printed and never is printed. If it were, that
paper's readers would flee from its bulk and deadly
dullness as from a pestilence.
Thus far, these suggestions may have seemed
to partake more of preaching than prophecy. It
is for the public quite as much as for the newspapers, or for the young men who are now coming forward to make them, to determine whether,
when grouped, they portray at all the newspaper
of the next quarter or half century. That newspaper will more generally tell the truth and be
fair if the community and the courts do their part.
But the respectable and intelligent community
must not show the kind of paper it likes so largely
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JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
by buying the other kind; and the courts must
not emphasize their love of fairness by making
the accidental and unimportant libels in the fair
papers the chief objects of their judicial severity.
We shall have fewer sensational papers, and get
the news told more as a landscape is painted,
with some sense of perspective and some artistic
omission of offensive or worthless objects, whenever and as far as the public taste is well enough
educated to prefer a correct and vivacious style
to "blood and thunder," written and printed as if
with a paint-brush. We shall surely have shorter
reports of many things, if not also smaller papers.
No reduction is likely to come from the general
public's ceasing to look in a newspaper for information which it daily wants and has been once
accustomed to find there. Information only wanted
by small classes, on the other hand, may naturally
drop out as class journalism develops. The notion
that Sunday's paper must be ten times as big as
Monday's will be mitigated. The first-class daily
paper of the future is not likely to come in the
form of a book or even of a pamphlet. Whatever
its form, or quality, or contents, the people that
read it will pay for it; it will not be an eleemosynary institution, chiefly conducted by the advertising business of the country, for the benefit of
anybody that will read. Its wealth and prosperity will be welcomed as a gain and security for
the whole community. It will indulge in no sham
about being independent of business consideraC 340 ]




AND OPPORTUNITIES
tions. It will be best liked when its owners conduct it; and least when its owners, engaged elsewhere, secretly make their newspaper investment a means of furthering private ends. It will
not be intensely individualized-will not be a
one-man paper. It will support parties as means to
a patriotic end, and religion as leading to the best
life; but it will not be a party organ, or an organ
of the churches. It will deal with politics according
to its convictions and tell the truth according to
its capacity; but not being edited by angels, it will
make mistakes sometimes, and perhaps have even
the grace, sometimes, to acknowledge them.
If now, among the gentlemen and scholars of
Yale, who have done me the honor to follow these
remarks, there should still be some unwise enough
to persist in an intention to take up newspaper
work, the simplest advice to give them, and about
as practical as any they are likely to follow, is to
imitate Lord Bacon while the resources of this
institution are yet at their command, and take all
knowledge for their province. The average newspaper man on the great dailies is far better educated to-day than twenty years ago, but the standard of qualifications is likely in the next twenty to
be higher still. Like most of my colleagues on the
press, I have little faith in " Schools of Journalism,"
or in" Courses of Journalism," or, if you must have
the truth, in lectures on Journalism either! The
only place to learn the newspaper business is in
a newspaper office; and you have to be caught tolC 341 J




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES
erably young to learn it at all. But the place to acquire some of the qualifications for the business is
the place where you can get the best general education the world affords. Above all, it must be an
education that teaches you to see straight and to
think straight; and therefore its very foundations
must not be undermined by too eager a search for
easy" electives."
But, assuming that Yale still encourages the
sturdy old New England ideas as to the essentials
of a liberal education, and that you are sure to be
grounded in the Arts and Humanities,we may next
look to whatever will facilitate wide acquisition and
persuasive expression. You must first know things
and know where to find things; and next how to
interest people in your way of telling these things
and reasoning about them. Knowledge,real knowledge,not a smattering,of the history of your country is indispensable, and no historical knowledge
will come amiss. Constitutional and international
law at least you must know, and if you can take a
full law course, so much the better. Modern languages will be most helpful, and in our great newspapers a reading knowledge of at least three of
them -French, German, and Spanish -becomes
every year more desirable. The literature of your
own language should be studied till you learn
how to use the noble tongue to express to the best
advantage and in the- fewest words whatever you
have to say. You should know your own country,
and above all grasp intelligently the fact that the
C 342 J




AND OPPORTUNITIES
part worth knowing is not confined to a narrow
strip along the Atlantic coast. You should know
foreign countries, and thus chasten the notions that
wisdom began with us, and that liberty and intelligence hardly exist elsewhere. You should know
the people, the plain, every-day, average man, the
man in the street, —his condition, his ideas, his
needs, his notions,-and you should learn early
that he is not likely to be overpowered by your condescension when you attempt to reason with him.
Finally, let me remind you that the man who succeeds is a man who has not undervalued what he
is undertaking. This work we have considered is as:
varied,as exacting,and as responsible as anyknown
to our modern civilization, if not also the most potential, for good or ill. It calls for patience, for moderation, for deliberate judgment,for quick and accurate perception, for resolute purpose, and for what
the politicians call "staying power." No man who
cannot, like the pugilist, "take punishment," has
any business in it. No man who lets his nerves or his
passions run away with his ice-cold judgment has
any business in it. But, to him who is called, the opportunity is beyond estimate. To him are given the
keys of every study, the entry to every family, the
ear of every citizen when at ease and in his most
receptive mood,-powers of approach and of persuasion beyond those of the Protestant pastor or the
Catholic confessor. He is by no means a prophet,but,
reverently be it said, he is a voice in the wilderness,
preparing the way. He is by no means a priest, but
E 343 i




JOURNALISTIC DUTIES & OPPORTUNITIES
his words carry wider and farther than the priest's,
and he preaches the gospel of Humanity. He is not
a king, but he nurtures and trains the king, and the
land is ruled by the Public Opinion he evokes and
shapes. If you value this good land the Lord has
given us, if you would have a soul in this marvellous
civilization and a lifting power for humanity, look
well to the nurture and training of your king!
UNIV. OF MICH)OAhr
OCT 3 1914




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