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HISTORY OF JOURNALISM

King," which reference aroused such indignation that the paper was obliged to suspend. The result of this murder was the formation of the Vigilance Committee of 1856.

To the Eastern mind, such a beginning will seem to have no reflection in the orderly and well-edited papers that now abound in the far West, nor will it seem to ofifer the slightest excuse for a wealthy young Californian's having stirred, angered and irritated the East—and having been successful. Unfortunately, the Eastern mind that takes an interest in the subject is, at best, little given to understanding the West,—even its simpler aspects. Frank students of our policy admit this, while others irritably protest, "Nonsense; we're all alike—like us." It isn't so, but although the West knows that it is not so, the East does not. Whatever is to be the final analysis of Hearst it will be one in which the call of men for strange and lonely venture, the nervous dislike of check and convention, will largely enter. Meanwhile, the student of journalism finds food for thought in the fact that the greatest exponent of personal journalism, in the city that produced the Titans of the profession, was a Californian; one who, whatever his faults, has never been harnessed and certainly never afraid.




We have followed the line of a development strange in the history of civilization. We have seen the rise of journalism from the time, less than two centuries ago, when it had little relation with government and public opinion,—so little that the suppression of the first paper by the government argjised no protest; the records, in fact, indicate that the suppression was regarded with a complacency tantamount to approval. So far as we know