380 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
press and of the awful authority and mystery of the "we." Indeed, the "we" would have to be abandoned for the down- right and somewhat egoistical " I." Obscure writers and "penny-a-liners," whose qualifications for sitting in judgment upon leaders of thought and action are not obvious, would adopt a lower key and cultivate the virtue of modesty ; but this effect would be temporary. In France, where signed journalism is the rule, criticism of great men by small is not less common than in the countries where anonymous journalism prevails, and the license and irresponsibility of the popular newspapers are even more extreme than in the United States ; and is their demoralizing and brutalizing influence smaller ? By no means. In fine, there is no device which would enable us to lessen the tremendous power of the daily newspapers. The great majority of people depend on them for most of their informa- tion- — the raw material of opinion — and for nearly all of their ideas. Iteration, assertion, emphasis, and variation are the sources of the power exercised, and of these it is impossible to get rid. They are of the essence of journalism. Honest and high-minded newspapers cannot have too much authority ; for we know that when a good cause enlists the heart)' support of the press, it is certain to triumph, and no one wo.uld cripple that species of journalism. The other species, unprincipled and purely commercial, will continue to inflict incalculable injury till the people learn to avoid it as they do a leper and mad brute. And here an important point must be accentuated. The sensa- tional and semi-criminal newspapers will not be boycotted by the average man unless the moral and clean newspapers equal them in respect of completeness, comprehensiveness, liveliness, and alertness. There is much about the enterprise, audacity, and breeziness of the sensational press that makes it stimulating and attractive. The honorable press must not yield precedence in these particulars. As the London Spectator recently argued, journalism must be a mirror of life — of life as it is, in all its aspects. It must hold the mirror up to human nature and human activity. It should not attempt to expurgate the record as fiction is expurgated for the benefit of the young. But, on
