Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/492



The assertion has been made by publicists that if the European countries had had newspapers like those found in America there would never have been the Great War of the World. Be that as it may, there can be no question that the permanence of the American Republic is linked by inseparable bonds to the inde- pendence of the press. No man has seen this fact more clearly than ex-president Charles William Eliot, of Harvard University. His conclusion, not that of one ultimately associated with the profession, but rather that of one who sees American life in all its ramifications, may well be the concluding paragraph of this book:

Another new and effective bulwark of state is to be found in the ex- treme publicity with which all American activities are carried on. Many people are in the habit of complaining bitterly of the intrusion of the newspaper reporter into every nook and corner of the State and even into the privacy of the home; but in this extreme publicity is really to be found a new means of social, industrial, and governmental reform and progress. There are many exaggerations, perversions, and inaccuracies in this publicity; but on the whole it is a beneficent and a new agency for the promotion of the public welfare. ... So new is this force in the world that many people do not yet trust it, or perceive its immense utility. In case of real industrial grievances and oppressions, publicity would be by far the quickest and surest means of cure vastly more effective for all just ends than secret combinations of either capitalists or laborers. The newspapers which are the ordinary instruments of this publicity, are as yet very imperfect instruments, much of their work being done so hastily and so cheaply as to pre- clude accuracy; but as a means of publicity they visibly improve from decade to decade and taken together with the magazines and the con- troversial pamphlet, they shed more light on the social, industrial, and political life of the people of the United States than was ever shed be- fore on the doings and ways of any people. This force is distinctly new within the century, and it affords a new and strong guarantee for the American Republic.

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