Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/338

 long series of years leads to the conclusion, that no parts of the best newspapers of to-day are so free from errors of fact as are the editorial columns. Errors of judgment will always be found, yet the historian must regard these as personal and not to be attributed to the newspaper as such.

As the editorial has widened its scope from the early, almost exclusive consideration of political subjects, it has in so doing acquired an independence in treating all subjects. The early editorial was largely the expression of the personal opinions of the editor; the editorial to-day is the impersonal voice of the newspaper. This is in sharp contrast to the changes that have come in other parts of the newspaper. War correspondence was in its great days entirely impersonal,—the volume, The War Correspondence of the "Daily News," 1887, is made up of a very large number of letters, the authors of which can not be identified by any one who does not understand the cryptic symbol used by each, but the letters of war correspondents to-day are published, and later collected, under the name of each individual writer.

But it was the editor who may once have placed his initials under his editorial, as did Horace Greeley. The editorial to-day is impersonal and its authorship presumably unknown outside of the editorial office. Many illustrations of this, as also of the wide and accurate knowledge found in the best editorials, are seen in the volumes of editorials collected to-day that involve a knowledge of the conditions out of which the late war grew. As the editorial becomes more and more impersonal, it becomes for the use of the historian more and more valuable. It is of course inevitable that this very impersonality should bring with it a certain confusion growing out of the editorial "we,"—a custom almost contemporaneous with the origin of the newspaper press itself. It has been traced to the Mercurius Politicus, the official gazette the first number of which appeared June 13, 1650. It contained letters from abroad and since "two persons were speaking, not only for themselves, but also for the Council of State," the form used was understandable. The plural form was