Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/19

Rh took up the cause of the negroes did not represent the black men; it was impelled to action by the moral sense of those who had recently achieved sovereignty and who, subconsciously perhaps, acted as much for their own protection as for the betterment of the blacks. The low condition to which the poor whites were sinking at the South shows that a condition worse than slavery was possible, if the right to own human beings were not abolished.

Thus the development of democracy meant increase of the power of journalism. Strange and crude were the instruments of this journalism, it is true, but elegance and refinement are characteristic of neither biologic nor social evolution. The manners of men are rude, and, as journalism developed,—as a more or less illegitimate or "poor white" brother of literature,—it was subjected, helpfully in most cases, it is true, to criticism either by those who had little interest in the political significance or by those who were politically and socially opposed to the purposes to be achieved.

Strange instruments, as I have said, appeared in the course of this development. The elder Bennett and the Herald, as it was edited for years, would hardly seem the agents of either a moral or political development. Yet, distasteful as were many of his early exploits, and immoral as was his espousal of the slavery cause for purely commercial reasons, the elder Bennett did the country and democracy a great service, for he caused people to read newspapers in large numbers. He gave them news of events that lay about them daily, and of which they had little consciousness; he interested them in themselves and their fellow beings, he quickened their sense of life, thereby increasing their political power.

History is often read in terms superimposed by men