Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/16

xii will to be free, and where there is a will to be free there will be a desire to be right.

The development of democracy in America is one of the greatest examples in recorded history of this law of progress—the triumph of democracy has always been the triumph of the moral sentiments.

How far democracy developed journalism and how far journalism developed democracy is an interesting question. That the democracy of ancient Greece, limited monarchy that it was, existed without journalism is true. But government was local and dealt purely with the affairs of those residing within the dema; the community being small, and the Greeks being a garrulous and politically developed people, they were able by word of mouth to keep track of their affairs. As soon as the government stretched out it became, not a democracy but a tyranny.

What is plainly evident is that the printing press was invented at a time when people were becoming restive. They had progressed to a point where they were no longer satisfied with the old servitude. Once given an invention by which man's thoughts might be communicated to others with a minimum of labor and expense, journalism was inevitable. The humblest effort to make it effective, such as that of Benjamin Harris, thus becomes an important page in our history.

Indifference to the history of journalism has been ascribed to the fact that research into those departments of knowledge that do not lead to an academic career is usually neglected. That comparatively few writers have been attracted to the subject is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that it is over a hundred and fifty years since the press in this country began to assume political functions. While the early historians entirely