The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

Persons competent to form a correct judgment, do not hesitate to say that the number of newspapers taken in this country, exceeds that in all the world beside. So vast an amount of reading matter, voluntarily sought for and consumed by the people, at a cost of so many millions of dollars, is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present age of wonders, and proves the avidity with which information is received, as well as the incalculable influence which the press must have on the public mind. The popular newspaper, issued in immense numbers, is in truth emphatically an American institution. Nowhere else could an audience, capable of reading, be found sufficiently numerous to absorb the issues of our teeming press. It is the offspring and indispensable accompaniment of universal education and popular representative government. These could scarcely be maintained without it. Everywhere in Europe, except perhaps in England, Italy, and Switzerland, the press is little more than an engine of the government, used chiefly, or only, for its own political purposes. Here it enjoys absolute freedom, being responsible only to the laws for any abuse of its high privilege.

This entire freedom promotes unbounded growth in journalism, and gives a circulation to the remotest cabin in the land. And if the unrestricted energies of the system produce fruits somewhat wild, not imbued with the refined flavor of better-cultivated productions, their universal distribution and bounteous fulness of supply make up somewhat for the deficiency in quality, and give promise of a future improvement, which will leave nothing to be desired. If every leaf of the forest were a sibylline record, and every month of the year should bring round the deciduous influences of autumn, the leaves that would then "strew the vales" of our country would give some adequate idea of the immense shower of these printed missiles which falls every day, every week, and every month, into the hands of the American people. Do they come as "a kindly largess to the soil they grew on," or do they scatter mischief where they fall? Of the power, for good or for evil, of this vast intellectual agency, there can be no question. But what is the nature of this influence? How does it affect the character and welfare of the community in which its unregulated and unlimited authority prevails?

The daily papers of New York, and of some other cities, contain, in each sheet, an amount of printed matter equal to sixty-four pages of an ordinary octavo volume. The scope and variety of the information embodied in them, and the uniformity with which they are maintained from year to year, give evidence of wonderful enterprise, mechanical skill, and intellectual ability. Concentrating news from all parts of the world, by means of a vast and expensive organization, and discussing, with more or less profound learning and logic, all the important questions of the day, they have established an immense spiritual power in the bosom of modern society, such as was not known to the nations in past ages.

It is true that much of the space in the great dailies, so voluminous as has been stated, is occupied in mere business notices and individual advertisements; and such is the case, generally, with the daily and weekly papers throughout the country. But even this, the humblest department of the newspaper, may justly be considered an invaluable instrument of civilization. It multiplies to an unlimited extent the means of communication among men, and is, therefore, a labor-saving invention of precisely the same character as the railroad and the steam engine. In a few brief phrases, made expressive by conventional understanding, every man can converse with thousands of his neighbors, and even of distant strangers. Without change of place, without labor of limbs or of lungs, the man of business can, in a single day, and every day, if he will, inform a whole community of his own wants, and of his readiness to meet the wants of others. The newspaper performs the work of thousands of messengers, and saves countless hours of labor to the whole community in which it circulates. In some sense, every man is brought nearer to every other. Each hears the innumerable voices which address him, and is able to distinguish the individual message which each one has sent.

It is difficult to estimate the value of this simple agency in its social aspect. Its material saving is plain to the most cursory thought; but its higher influence in binding society together and making it homogeneous, if not equally apparent, is at least quite as indisputable. Civilization is the direct result of bringing mankind into cooperation and combined effort, so that the whole power of mind and body of whole communities is brought to bear in unison for the accomplishment of social ends. Therefore, as a mere instrument of intercommunication, rendering more direct and intimate the relations of individuals, and promoting ease, celerity, and harmony in their combined movements, the power of the press is prodigious and invaluable. But when this power is extended beyond the bounds of mere material interests and the relations of ordinary business—when it appeals to the intellect and enters the domain of art, literature, science, and philosophy, embracing politics, morality, and all the highest interests of mankind, its capacity for good would seem to be illimitable.

In future ages, these innumerable sheets, which float so lightly on the surface of our civilization, will form imperishable records of the manners, habits, occupations, and the whole intellectual existence of our people. They are so numerous that no accident can destroy them all; and they will present to the eye of the future student of history the most lively, natural, and perfect picture—the very moving panorama—of the busy and teeming life of the present generation. No exhumed relics of buried cities, no hieroglyphic inscriptions upon ancient monuments, with whatever skill and genius deciphered, nor even any labored descriptions of past ages, which may have survived the ravages of time, will be equal to these memorials, in their power to recall the daily work, the amusements, the business, and, in short, the whole material, intellectual, and social being of our people.

The types and footprints of creation, imprinted on the rocks and imbedded in the strata of the earth, giving knowledge of the existence and habits of extinct species of animals, and teaching how geological periods have succeeded each other, with their causes and concomitants, are not so plain and distinct to us, as will be these daily effusions, advertisements, and business notices of all kinds in the ordinary newspapers of the country, to future generations of men, who shall there seek to learn the successive and gradual steps by which the social fabric shall be built up on the foundations of human thought and action. Like the worm that crawls over the mud ere it hardens into rock; or the leaf that fixes its form and impress in the bed of coal; or like the bowlder that forms the pencil point of a mighty iceberg, scratching the rocks in its movement across a submerged plain, destined to be upheaved as a continent in some future convulsion; or like the coral insect, which, in forming his separate cell, unconsciously assists in laying the foundation of islands and vast regions of solid earth; we, the creatures of the hour, all unconscious of the record we are making, leave imperishable memorials of our existence and works, in the apparently petty and fugitive contents of the journals which we read daily, and in which we make known our business and our wants. Narratives and formal descriptions may be one-sided, and may easily deceive and mislead; but these indications, which will be preserved in the social strata as they slowly subside in the ocean of humanity, carry in themselves perfect fulness and absolute verity.

One of the most significant and influential results of the wide and rapid circulation of newspapers is to be found in the simultaneous impression made on the popular mind throughout the vast extent of our country. Flashed on the telegraph, daguerreotyped and made visible in the newspaper, every event of any importance, occurring in any part of the world, is communicated, almost at the same moment, to many millions of people. All are impressed at the same time with the same thoughts, or with such kindred ideas as will naturally arise from reflection upon the same facts. Humor, with its thousand tongues, is hushed; and the telegraph, under control of agents employed to sift the truth, and responsible for it, takes its place. Falsehood still may, and, indeed, often does tamper with this mighty instrument; but its speed is so great that it can overtake even falsehood, and soon counteract and correct the mischief. What is the import of this momentous fact,—the instantaneous communication of information over a continent, and the participation of all minds, in the same thoughts, virtually at the same time? Undoubtedly the result must be a closeness of intercourse and a completeness of cooperation, which will give to the social organization a power and efficiency in accomplishing great ends, such as no human thought has ever heretofore conceived. Society becomes a unity in the highest and truest sense of that term; like the bodily frame of the individual man, it is connected throughout all its parts by a network of nerves, every member sympathizing with every other, feeling the same impulses, having the same knowledge, and forming judgments upon the same facts. When sentiments are perfectly harmonious among men, the increase of power is not merely in proportion to numbers. It grows in a much higher ratio. The effect is something like that of multiplying the surfaces in a galvanic battery, or increasing the coils in an electro-magnetic apparatus. Passion in a multitude becomes a tornado. Eloquence moves a large audience with a power vastly greater than when the listeners are few. Similar is that strange influence which fashion exerts in all societies. Nor is this sympathetic multiplication of power limited to passion or artistic sentiment: it extends to opinions and all intellectual phenomena. A person feeling strong emotions or having profound convictions, and knowing them to be shared by millions of others, inevitably experiences a strengthening and intensifying influence from the sympathy of his fellows. If he knew himself to be solitary and alone in his opinions, unsupported by that human sympathy which every one craves, his ideas would languish, and be greatly diminished in their power. It is only great minds, of exceptional character, which can do battle, single-handed, against the world. Most men require to be propped and supported on all sides, by the great power of public opinion. The approach to unanimity of thought promoted by the general circulation of newspapers, has something of the marvellous effects seen in other cases, in enhancing the moral and intellectual power of the community.

The telegraph is the legitimate offspring of the newspaper. In the absence of the latter, there would have been comparatively little use for the former. Without the almost universal distribution of the newspaper, instantaneous communication of news would not have been so much required, and the invention for that purpose would hardly have been made. It is probably in the United States alone, with its unlimited circulation of newspapers, that this extraordinary application of natural forces could have been conceived. It is here those wonderful lightning presses have been constructed, under the stimulus of that vast demand for daily papers which arises from the general education of the people and their avidity for information. In no other state of things could such combinations have been imagined, because there would have been no occasion for the inventive effort, and even the very idea would not have occurred. Although the wide extent of our country, the vast distances separating important centres of commerce and industry, and the general activity and energy of men in this free government, all concurred in enforcing the necessity of this latest wonder of human ingenuity—the telegraph,—yet the newspaper, with its boundless circulation and power of distribution, was indispensable to make it available and to give it all its inestimable value.

But, after all, the prodigious influence of the press, aided by its great instrument, the telegraph, derives its moral and political value chiefly from the lessons it teaches, and the good purposes it aims to accomplish. Unhappily, if the newspaper may be the means of doing incalculable good, it may also be instrumental in doing infinite mischief. If it may multiply the power of the community, by promoting harmony of thought and feeling, it may direct this concentrated energy to the wrong end, as well as to the right. Being a great vehicle for the communication of ideas on all subjects, it becomes a mighty instrument of education; entering almost every house in the land, and reaching the eye of every man, woman, and child who can read, it exercises almost supreme control over the sentiments of the masses. It is a tremendous intellectual engine, radiating the light of knowledge to the extremities of the land, and, in its turn, wielding, to some extent, the incalculable power which that knowledge imparts to its recipients.

Like every other human agency, the press is liable to be controlled by sinister influences. Perhaps, from the entire absence of all direct responsibility, from its usual entire devotion to public affairs, and the acknowledged influence of its representations on the popular mind, it is peculiarly exposed to the seductions of patronage, and to the temptations of personal and mercenary interests. A mere party journal, involved in a perpetual conflict for power, and for the accompanying spoils, is, of all the depositaries of moral power, at once the most dangerous and the most contemptible. To it, truth is of secondary importance; having satisfied itself that no prosperity, or even liberty, can exist without the success of its men and measures, it makes everything bend to this purpose. The end justifies the means. Impartial statement or rational investigation is seldom to be found in its columns. Nevertheless, in the general competition which arises where the press is free, the tendency will always be toward the true and the good. Rival journals will advocate different theories and maintain opposite systems; but free discussion will gradually eliminate error, and out of the multitudinous rays of different colors, diffused throughout society, will eventually come that perfect combination which constitutes the clear, pure, homogeneous light of truth. And even pending the early struggle and confusion which attend the inauguration of a free press, divergencies of opinion, ever tending to harmony, cannot become so great as to produce fatal effects. The rebellion of the Southern States of this Union could never have happened, in the presence of universal education and of a free press, whose emanations could have penetrated as widely as those which reach the people of the opposite section.

In view of the high functions of the press and its immense influence in the nation,—its perpetual daily lessons, falling on the public mind like drops that wear away the hardest rock and work their channel where they will,—it is of the first importance to comprehend the power behind this imperial throne, which directs and controls it. Does it assume to originate and establish principles in government and morals? Or does it aspire only to the humbler office of propagating such ideas as have been sanctioned by the best judgment of the age, of illustrating their operation, and making them acceptable to the people? The fugitive essays and hurried comments on passing events, which fill the columns of newspapers, do not ordinarily constitute solid foundations on which the principles of social or political action can be safely established. The men usually employed in this work of distributing ideas, are not they who are capable of building up substantial systems by the slow process of induction, or who can, by the opposite system, apply great general truths to the purposes of national prosperity and happiness. They are far too much engaged in the active business of life,—too deeply involved in the strifes and turmoils of mankind,—too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the passing hour, with all its passions and prejudices—to be the philosophic guides of humanity, and to lay down, with the serene logic of truth, the bases of moral and political progress. The inevitable sympathy between the editor and his daily readers—the action and reaction which constantly take place and insensibly lead the journalist into the paths of popular opinion and passion—these are too apt to render him altogether unfit to be an oracle in the great work of social organization and government. The common sense of the multitude is often an invaluable corrective of speculative error; but the impulses and strong prejudices of communities, though calculated to sweep along with them the judgments of all, are mostly pernicious, and sometimes dangerous in the extreme. The true remedy for these evils and dangers is, to employ in the management of the daily press, the noblest intellect, combined with the most incorruptible purity of motive. Commanding the entire confidence of the nation, and worthy of it, the lessons of this great teacher—the central light-giving orb of civilization—will be received with reverence and gratitude, and with a benign and fructifying influence, something like that which the sun sheds on the world of nature.

A French philosopher, writing in 1840, says of us:

'This universal colony, notwithstanding the eminent temporal advantages of its present position, must be regarded as, in fact, in all important respects, more remote from a true social reorganization than the nations from whom it is derived, and to whom it will owe, in course of time, its final regeneration. The philosophical induction into that ulterior state is not to be looked for in America—whatever may be the existing illusions about the political superiority of a society in which the elements of modern civilization are, with the exception of industrial activity, most imperfectly developed.'

It may be admitted that we are yet somewhat behind the foremost nations of Europe in the higher walks of philosophy, and certainly in the practical application of true social principles, which, as yet, we do not fully comprehend, even if they do. But the conclusion of this author cannot be sound. However moderate may be our standard of knowledge in the United States, this knowledge, such as it is, is more widely diffused among the people who are to profit by it, than in any other country. If our attainments be comparatively small in philosophic statesmanship, the whole population partakes more or less in such progress as we have made; for education is universal, and whatever ideas are generated in the highest order of minds, soon become the familiar possession of all to the extremities of the land. Government yields with little opposition or delay to the interests and intelligence, and it may be, to the ignorance of the people: there is no other nation on the globe in which social forms and institutions are so plastic in the hands of wise and energetic men. By means of universal education and the perfect distribution of knowledge, we are laying the broadest possible basis on which the noblest structure may be raised, if we can only command the wisdom to build aright. The question, therefore, is, whether a whole people thoroughly educated and with the most perfect machinery for the diffusion of knowledge, though starting from a moderate condition of enlightenment, will outrun or fall behind other nations in which the few may be wiser, while the multitude is greatly more ignorant, and in which the forms of government and of social, organization are more rigid, and inaccessible to change or improvement. To answer this question will not cause much hesitation, at least in the mind of an American; and if we are not altogether what we think ourselves, the wisest and best of mankind, we may at least claim to be on the way to the highest improvement, with no serious obstacles in our path.

OUR FRIENDS ABROAD

Two souls alone are friends of oursIn all the British isles;Who sorrow for our darkened hoursAnd greet our luck with smiles."And who may those twain outcasts beWhose favor ye have won?"The first is Queen of England's realm,The other that good Queen's son.

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

'Do but grasp into the thick of human life. Every one lives it—to not many is it known; and seize it where you will, it is interesting.'

—Goethe.

'Successful.—Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or intended.'

—Webster's Dictionary.

CHAPTER IX

DIAMOND CUT—PASTE

Elihu Joslin belonged to that class of knaves who are cowardly as well as unscrupulous. He never hesitated to cheat where he had an opportunity, trusting to his powers of blustering and browbeating to sustain him. When these failed, that is, when he encountered persons who were not imposed on nor intimidated by his swaggering, bullying mien, he showed his craven nature by an abject submission. From being an errand boy in an old-established paper house in the city, he had himself become the proprietor of a large business in the same line. He had but a single idea—to make money. And he did make it. His reputation among the trade was very bad. But this did not, as it ought to have done, put him out of the pale of business negotiations. Every merchant knows that there are many rich men in business, whose acts of dishonesty and whose tricks form a subject of conversation and anecdote with their associates in trade, yet who are not only tolerated, but are by some actually courted. Joslin, when quite a young man, had been the assignee of his employer, who hoped to find in him a pliant tool. He soon found his mistake. He had put himself completely in the power of his clerk, and the latter took full advantage of it. The result was, his principal was beggared, and Joslin rose on his ruins.

It was a favorite practice with Joslin to discover men who were short of money, lend them what they wanted, and thus, after a while, get control of all they possessed. When Joslin first met Mr. Burns, he hoped to entangle him as he had his friend. But the former was too good a merchant and in too sound a position to be brought in this way into his toils. He was therefore obliged to have recourse to sheer knavery to compass his object. The fact of Mr. Burns living so far from the city, the great expense which would be entailed on him by a litigation, and the natural repugnance he thought Mr. Burns would have to a lawsuit, emboldened him to employ the most high-handed measures to cheat him. The fact was, Mr. Burns's paper had become well known in the market, and commanded a ready sale. The manufacture was even—the texture firm and hard. There was a continually increasing demand for it. Joslin determined on—even for him—some audacious strokes. He sent a lot of the paper to an obscure auctioneer, one of his tools, and had it bid off in the name of a young man in his store. He thereupon reported the entire consignment to be unsalable, and credited Mr. Burns with the whole lot at the auction prices, less expenses. In this way he claimed to have no funds when Mr. Burns's drafts became due, and called on the latter for the ready money. The previous consignment he pretended to have sold in the city, at a time when paper was much lower than usual, but he had returned for this the then market price. Really he had not sold the paper at all. Knowing it was about to rise, he simply reported a sale, and kept the paper on hand to take advantage of the market, and he was now selling it at an advance of ten per cent, on the previous rates.

Mr. Burns had never before encountered so desperate a knave. As we have said, the affair troubled him greatly. True, he was determined to investigate it thoroughly, but he could not well afford the time to go himself to New York. His chief man at the paper mill had failed to accomplish anything; so it was a great relief when Hiram volunteered his services. Mr. Burns could not tell why, but he had a singular confidence that Hiram would bring the matter out right. He was up to see his confidential clerk off in the stage, which passed through Burnsville before daylight, and which was to call at the office for its passenger. From that office a light could be seen glimmering as early as three o'clock. Hiram, after an hour or two in bed, where he did not close his eyes, had risen, and taking his valise in his hand, had gone to the office, and was again deep in the accounts. He would make memorandums from time to time, and at last wrote a brief note to Mr. Burns, asking him to send forward by the first mail a full power of attorney. At length the stage horn was heard. Hiram rose, opened his valise, and placed his papers within it. The stage wheeled rapidly round the corner, and drew up at the office door; Hiram extinguished the light, seized his valise, stepped quietly out, and was in the act of turning the key—he had a duplicate—when Mr. Burns arrived.