Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/267

Rh Of the many journals that were established to meet the demand thus created, only those survived by whom that demand was truly understood; those who satisfied it with newspapers of character, with an appreciation of the great curiosity on the part of the public for facts—or fiction—about their very interesting selves.

De Tocqueville, in his travels in this country, was struck with this very personal attitude on the part of American editors.

"The journalists of the United States," he wrote, "are usually placed in a very humble position with a scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind. . . . The characteristics of the American journalist consist of an open and coarse appeal to the passions of the populace, and he' habitually abandons the principles of political science to assail the characters of individuals, to track them into private life and disclose all their weaknesses and errors. . . . The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight in the eyes of the public."

To this cultivated young man the journalistic expression of a raw young democracy, lacking all the traditions of the old European countries, was marked with crudities and vulgarities. The crudities were generally admitted and the vulgarities denied,—foolishly, for they are inevitable and unimportant when we consider the social and political changes of which they were simply surface manifestations.

Up to the early thirties, the price of newspapers in the large cities had remained practically prohibitive, so far as the average workingman was concerned. The papers were not sold on the streets and could only be obtained through subscription. Still more important, they were edited, not for the people on the street, but by and for the business institutions or the politicians.