Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/423

Rh Pamphlet, N. Y. Tribune, 22.

"Viewed in the light of that day, before the colonies had learned the use and power of newspapers, before John Wilkes had defied parliament and crown in behalf of the right to deal in type with public questions, the case and its results marked a complete change in theory and practice. It was the development of a new motor in affairs. It was the creation of an implement for the people, which rulers and courts must forever regard. The Christian era doubtless would have come without John the Baptist and his preaching. So American independence would have been wrought out, without this triumph for the liberty of printing the truth. But as events have occurred, the trial of Zenger and his acquittal stand forth as the one incident which molded opinions, which strengthened courage, which crystallized purpose on this continent in the grand movement whose termination perhaps no man foresaw, whose direction few suggested above a whisper, and yet whose logic was as direct as the laws of the universe.

"Why should the press be wholly free, if this continent was to bow before a king seated beyond the ocean, and to receive its statutes from a parliament in which it could have no representatives? A generation was required for the question to stir men's minds, and to bring them face to face with the answer. If Zenger had been convicted, no estimate can determine the time which would have been demanded to strike 1, New York, i., 277, 278.