Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/124

120 good and bad, study it all as a whole, and by the inductive method construct the ethics of the press, and here you find no signs of a higher morality in general than you found in trade. It is the same centre about which all things gravitate here as there. But in the newspapers the want of great principles is more obvious, and more severely felt than in trade—the want of justice, of truth, of humanity, of sympathy with man. In trade you meet with signs of great power; the highway of commerce bears marks of giant feet. Our newspapers seem chiefly in the hands of little men, whose cunning is in a large ratio to their wisdom or their justice, you find here little ability, little sound learning, little wise political economy; of lofty morals almost nothing at all. Here, also, the dollar is both pope and king; right and truth are vass&ls, not much esteemed, nor over-often called to pay service to their lord, who has other soldiers with more pliant neck and knee.

A newspaper is instrument of great importance; all men read it ; many read nothing else; some it serves as reason and conscience too: in lack of bettor, why not P It speaks to thousands every day on matters of great moment—on matters of morals, of politics of finance. It relates daily the occurrences of our land, and of all the world. All men are affected by it; hindered or helped. To many a man his morning paper represents more reality than his morning prayer. There are many in a community Vice this who do not know what to say— I do not mean wliat to think, thoughtful men know what to think—about anything til somebody tells them; yet they must talk, for "the mouth goes always." To such a man a newspaper is invaluable; as the idolater in the Judges had "a Levite to his priest," so he has a newspaper to his reason or his conscience, and can talk to the day's end. An able and humane newspaper would get this class of persons into good habits of speech, and do them a service, inasmuch as good habits of speech are better than bad.

One portion of this literature is degrading; it seems purposely so, as if written by base men, for base readers, to serve base ends. I know not which is most depraved thereby, the taste or the conscience. Obscene advertisements are there, meant for the licentious eye; there are loathsome details of vice, of crime, of depravity, related