Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/491



CHAPTER XVI THE AUTHORITATIVENESS OF THE PRESS “ Straight through the mighty Libyan folks is Rumour on the wing Rumour, of whom nought swifter is of any evil thing : She gathereth strength by going on, and bloometh shifting oft! A little thing, afraid at first, she springeth soon aloft ; Her feet are on the worldly soil,her head the clouds o 'erlay.

Earth, spurred by anger 'gainst the Gods, begot her as they say, Of Coeus and Enceladus the latest sister-birth. Swift are her wings to cleave the air, swift-foot she treads the earth : A monster dread and huge, on whom so many as there lie The feathers, under each there lurks, O strange! a watchful eye;

And there wag tongues, and babble mouths, and hearkening ears up stand

As many: all a -dusk by night she flies 'twixt sky and land Loud clattering, never shutting eye in rest of slumber sweet.

By day she keepeth watch high - set on houses of the street, Or on the towers aloft she sits for mighty cities' fear ! And lies and ill she loves no less than sooth which she must bear.” —

Virgil, translated by William Morris. “ I have been so cheated with false relations i' my time, as I ha' found it a far harder thing to correct my book, than collect it.”

Ben Jonson, News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (1621). “ The difference between a journalist and a diplomatist is that the latter must not tell what heknows, and that the journalist must talk about what he doesn 't know .” — De Blowitz.

Is the newspaper an authoritative source for the study of history ?

In attempting to answer the question the student of

history must hesitate before giving a final and definite statement. themselves of it. He knows not only that the press has ever been held in ill favor by men in public life whose actions have been criticized by it or whose political policy has been attacked by it,

buthe knowsthat men of probity have questioned its value, and he recalls a letter of Jefferson 's written under date of June 14, 1807, in which he says to a correspondent: “ To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful