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The Newspaper and the Historian/Chapter 11

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CHAPTER XI

THE EDITOR AND THE EDITORIAL

"I am Sir Oracle and when I ope my lips let no dog bark."—Shakespeare.

"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."—Bacon.

"I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of twenty to follow mine own teaching."—Shakespeare.

"Sir, I have often been contemplating with a particular Satisfaction, the eminent Station we Journal Writers, and the Printers of Journals stand in, and what high Characters we bear in the World."—Defoe.

"The newspaper editor writes in the sand when the flood is coming in. If he but succeed in influencing opinion for the present, he must be content to be forgotten in the future."—Hugh Miller.

"'Tis the curse of an editor that he must always be right."—Lowell.


The newspaper historically has had three distinct functions; the first was to publish the news, the second was to interpret the news and thereby to influence public opinion, the third has been to gain success as a business enterprise. The editor and the editorial belong to that period in the history of the press when the chief interest of the public in reading the newspaper lay in knowing what opinions it was right and wise to hold in regard to the great questions of the day. It was practically a hundred years after the appearance of the first English news paper before the editorial appeared even in shadowy form, and long after that before it assumed the responsibility of leading public opinion. Defoe introduced into Mist's Journal a "Letter Introductory,"—an essay written in the form of a letter on some subject of public interest. It is on the basis of this "Letter Introductory" that Lee claims "for Defoe that he first originated, and exemplified in his own person, those mighty agencies, in the formation and direction of public opinion, now comprehended in the words 'Editor' and 'Leading Article.'"[1]

​If Lee's identification of the authorship of these letters with Defoe be accepted, it must be evident how great a contribution Defoe made to the newspapers, the larger part of it to Applebee's Journal, between the years 1716 and 1729. They show not only that Defoe introduced new ideas into journalism,—"Defoe found time for the multitudinous activities which entitle him to be a great- grandfather of all modern journalism"—but through the wit and satire and good humor of what may be called the editorial columns they show how serious was the effort he made to influence public opinion . The records that these early editorials give of social, industrial, and political conditions that have long since passed away, and that they give of Defoe's part in effecting these changes, form a most important contribution towards a history of the press.[2] Defoe can not be called an editor, within the present meaning of the word, as Leslie Stephen has pointed out,[3] but that many of his contributions to the press can be justly characterized as editorials is not to be questioned.

It was apparently much later that in America the editorial emerged from the news proper as a distinctive feature of the newspaper. The character of an American paper down through the eighteenth century had in large part been gauged by the news furnished and by the "elegant selections" it provided.[4]

But the passage of the Alien and the Sedition Acts in 1798 had roused great opposition in all newspaper offices and thus gave great importance to the editorial.[5] It was in 1814 that Nathan Hale purchased the Boston Daily Advertiser and became "the first to assume the responsibility of expressing editorial opinions upon events of public interest and importance."[6] From that time on the editorial came to be the most important feature of the press, and the paper itself was identified with the editor. "Dana says so" or "Greeley says so" were equivalent to the opinions ​of the Sun or the Tribune during the middle of the nineteenth century. The editor[7] and the editorial long had a growing influence as they were able to shape public opinion, but among other conventional generalizations relating to the press, none is more frequently heard than the one that the editorial has ceased to be an important part of the newspaper. The historian must therefore examine the editorial through a succession of years in order to determine how far these criticisms are justified.

How far the editor and the newspaper can be considered synonymous terms is one of the troublesome problems of the historian, but it is clear that they must be so considered during the period of personal journalism . The great age of the editor and of the editorial has been held to be the period dating from about 1830 to about 1890, although examples of them are still found. It was the period of "personal journalism "when the owner, editor, and publisher were one and the same person.

The names of Bennett, Bowles, Bryant, Buckingham, Dana, Garrison, Greeley, Raymond, suggest a period when a man acquired a newspaper and it became his personal organ . In it he fought for the causes he gave his life to promote,—for abolition, for protective tariff, for political union, for western immigration; and he fought against all forms of political corruption as well as against all who opposed his personal policies. The business organization of the newspaper gave no opportunity for "amicable but irreconcilable difference of views" between publisher and editor.[8] Irreconcilable differences often indeed existed, but they were not amicable and they existed between the different editors of different papers, not between the different parts of the same paper. When Alaric Watts was the editor of the Leeds Intelligencer, one of the proprietors of the paper wrote him from London that the new editor should be careful to refer in very gentlemanly terms to everybody "except Mr. Baines,"—the proprietor and editor of the rival newspaper.[9]

​Much of this personal journalism has passed both in America and in England and its passing has been regretted, but the Evening Post notes that "laments over the passing of 'personal journalism' usually take no account of the personal rancor that went along with it. A defence of the lurid rhetoric that regularly resulted might be made on the ground of its unconscious humor, which was often better than our made-to-order sort."[10]

But exceptions even at an early time were found. An English traveler notes: "I have read a paragraph in a New York paper which announced the publication of another opposition paper which would take quite a different line in politics, and said, that the editor of the new organ was a man of so great ability, that it, the old established paper, could not doubt of the success it wished him . This was not the greeting which our established papers give to new adventurers."[11]

As a rule, however, the newspaper considered its own editorials white while those of its opponents were black,—no shadows mitigated the noonday brilliance of the one and no lights illumined the midnight blackness of the other. The editorial was a guarantee of the personal views of the editor, but it was not a guarantee that these same opinions were widely prevalent. How far they reflected public opinion can not be measured with any degree of certainty. Subscription lists are not an accurate gauge since so many influences induce subscriptions, nor can the votes cast on public questions accurately record public opinion since the exercise of the suffrage has always been limited by restrictions imposed by religion, property, residence, education, race, or sex.

During this period of personal journalism not only was the editor identified with the paper, but the paper was identified with the community. The dedication of two volumes of the editorial writings of Harvey W. Scott reads: "To the people of the Pacific Northwest who sustained the newspaper work of Harvey W. Scott, during forty-five years, for the spread of intelligence and ​for a growing expression of the universal religious spirit, this collection of his writings is appreciatively inscribed."[12] This dedication expresses rarely well the intimate and cordial relationship between the editor and the community and the community reaching out through a large section of a great country, as it was exemplified in the work of this great editor.

The responsibility entailed by this identity of interest between editor and community may again be illustrated by the conception of it held by this same editor. It is seen in a letter of Harvey W. Scott to certain clergymen who had written him protesting that it was not the function of the editor of a secular newspaper to advocate or to attack the peculiar views of any church. The editor writes that he can not admit that it is not a proper province of a newspaper to touch a subject which some clergymen claim as their exclusive field, "more especially since, as a newspaper man, in active touch with the public mind during more than forty years, I have found no feature of The Oregonian's work more sought or approved than in the field from which you would bar it." . . . "The Oregonian is a newspaper whose function is discussion, as it thinks fit and deems just, of all subjects presented for consideration in the active life of our people even the claims of dogmatic theology, on occasion." . . . "As a general newspaper, taking note of the movement of the thought of the world, The Oregonian cannot ignore a subject which has so large a part of the progressive world's attention."[13]

It was Thomas Carlyle who felt that in England the responsibilities of the editor were equally serious. "The true Church of England at this moment," he says, "lies in the editors of its newspapers. These preach to the people daily, weekly, admonishing kings themselves,advising peace or war with an authority which only the first reformers, and a long-past class of popes were possessed of; inflicting moral censure, imparting moral encouragement, in all ways diligently administering the discipline of the ​Church."[14] It must be recognized, however, that Carlyle's approval at that time of the function of the press collectively, may have been colored by his strong admiration of Edward Sterling, then editor of The Times, of whose editorials he enthusiastically writes, "Let the most gifted intellect, capable of writing epics, try to write such a Leader for the Morning Newspapers! No intellect but Edward Sterling's can do it."[15]

It was of Lord Acton as editor that his biographer writes: "Few readers of these Letters but will rid themselves of prevalent opinions as to the ease with which a serious magazine may be conducted, or as to the levity with which grave articles are put into print. Probably no Minister of State ever performed his duties more conscientiously than Acton his as essayist or reviewer; none in any department of affairs could give to the details of office a more anxious attention, a more exhaustive care."[16]

It is also not always understood that the work of the editor extends far beyond the range of his own paper. As is so well illustrated in the editorial work of E. P. Clark,[17] the skilful conscientious editor is ever on the alert to detect signs of unusual ability in newspaper work in every section of the country, to discover "who is trying to find out the truth and tell it, in the face of absolute persecution from all the other papers in his State," and to encourage him by friendly personal letters, and by editorial commendation .

The social evolution of the editor has probably had no small effect on the influence of the editorial. The early writer for the press not only lived on Grub Street, but the nature of his work was not understood and was long held in ill-concealed contempt. The biographer of Alaric Watts, writing of journalism about 1822, says that it was not "held in high esteem as an occupation, and was indeed, save in few and exceptional instances in which the political influence of the particular daily newspaper had secured a corresponding influential recognition of the writer for it, ​scarcely regarded as a literary occupation at all." But because the income derived from it was certain and regular, it was "accepted, not without some sacrifice of pride, as an occupation by literary men ."[18]

Sir Wemyss Reid, writing of the press about 1857, says that "the Press—at all events in provincial towns—in those days was the reverse of respectable in the eyes of the world; and truly there was some reason for the low esteem in which it was held . The ordinary reporter on a country paper was generally illiterate, he was too often intemperate, and he was invariably ill-paid ."[19] Conditions had not improved when Catling found a few years later that "no landlord or landlady would listen to the application of any journeyman for a decent house. Time after time I was refused as a tenant, even when payment of rent in advance was offered."[20]

When Lord Lyndhurst invited the editor of The Times to dinner it "made a great uproar,"[21] but a recent journalist can facetiously remark that an "editor attends more public banquets than a cabinet minister."[22]

The wheel turns round and Moberly Bell is cited as saying, only twenty years ago, that it was an unheard of thing for a member of the editorial staff of The Times to be seen talking with any member of the commercial department. Men working on the paper were forbidden to know each other.[23] In 1918 the wheel again turned when in Iowa the occupation was officially declared to be an unessential industry and its members therefore subject to the draft.[24]

A pendant to the social position of the editor is the very considerable number of editors who have been imprisoned - usually ​for debt, libel, or blasphemy—and have continued to edit their papers from behind prison bars.[25]

And the editor and journalist of every rank long sought his recreations in Bohemia. But thirty and more years ago, J. A. O'Shea wrote, "Bohemia is nearing the borders of Corinth,"[26]—a change that has been attributed in America to the introduction of typesetting machines that have done much to render "the ancient Bohemianism of the composing-room distasteful to the modern editor and obsolete with the better class of printers."[27] Sir Francis Burnand gives a significant account of the change in England from the Bohemia of the journalists of the middle of the nineteenth century to the Bohemia that, in the words of Layard, "has been captured by men whose tastes and habits have been formed at the public schools, or who at least have had their three years at Oxford or Cambridge."[28] The change of standards is everywhere noticeable to -day in the absence of all allusion to Bohemia,—even twenty-five years ago it was customary to refer to it as a matter of course in accounts of the press.

Emerging from Grub Street, and Bohemia, the editor developed in England into a Delane,—the confidant of ministers and of royalty; or into a member of the House of Lords, commanding vast wealth and high social prestige; or into a recipient of birth day honors. "There is scarcely a large city in Great Britain," says Porritt, "in which there is not a titled journalist,"—a system practically begun by Lord Salisbury in 1885 and continued by his successors.[29] In America he has more than once left the editorial sanctum to represent his country at foreign courts.

It was probably a somewhat superficial view of the social position of the editor that led De Tocqueville to say contemptuously, "The personal opinions of the editors [of American papers] have no kind of weight in the eyes of the public: the only use of a journal is, that it imparts the knowledge of certain facts, and it is ​only by altering or distorting those facts, that a journalist can contribute to the support of his own views.”[30]

Undoubtedly the weight attached to the opinions of the editor has at times taken on new and greater importance by reason of the offices and honors conferred upon him. Delane somewhat quickly acquired a reputation for omniscience, and especially after announcing in The Times the abolition of the corn laws, “he acquired the reputation which he never afterwards lost of being the best informed man in England.”[31] The opinions expressed by Delane in regard to the Civil War in America were apparently accepted without question by the readers of The Times. This readiness to accept his views, especially on a foreign situation, was undoubtedly due to the confidence felt in him because of his high social position, and the belief that this gave him authentic sources of information not available to others. But the disadvantage of omniscience is that it leads to over-confidence and an assumption of infallibility of judgment that does not always stand the test of time. In the case of Delane many of his intelligent contemporaries did not accept his judgment in regard to the Civil War. Leslie Stephen wrote with vehemence in an elaborate pamphlet: “My complaint against the Times is that its total ignorance of the quarrel and the presumption with which it pronounced upon its merits, led to its pouring out a ceaseless flood of scurrilous abuse, couched , indeed , in decent language, but as essentially insulting as the brutal vulgarities of the New York Herald. No American . . . could fail to be wounded , and, so far as he took the voice of the Times for the voice of England, to be irritated against England."[32]

How unerringly Leslie Stephen divined the effect of the attitude of Delane is seen in a letter of Lowell's to Leslie Stephen dated April 10, 1866, which he says “ is the first one I have sent across the Atlantic since our war began ." . . . " I confess I have had an almost invincible repugnance to writing again to England. I share with the great body of my countrymen in a bitterness (half resentment and half regret) which I can not yet get ​over. . . . I cannot forget the insult so readily as I might the injury of the last five years."[33]

John Stuart Mill in turn felt it necessary to send out a warning against the editorial infallibility of The Times and he wrote Motley under date of January 26, 1863: "Foreigners ought not to regard the Times as representing the English Nation . . . . The line it takes on any particular question is much more a matter of accident than is supposed. It is sometimes better than the public, and sometimes worse . . . . Unfortunately these papers (the Times and the Saturday Review], through the influence they obtain in other ways, and in the case of the Times very much in consequence of the prevailing notion that it speaks the opinions of all England, are able to exercise great power in perverting the opinions of England whenever the public is sufficiently ignorant of facts to be misled."[34]

Even Englishmen grew restive under the editorial dominance of The Times and a long correspondence between Cobden and Delane followed the misrepresentations in a Times leader to the effect that John Bright had excited discontent among the poor, and had proposed "a division among them of the lands of the rich." Cobden called on Delane by name to withdraw the baseless imputation, and when Delane refused to publish the letter of Cobden's in The Times, the latter published the correspondence in the Rochdale Observer. The question at issue between the two was the refusal of The Times to admit that it had been in error, as it clearly had been, and Cobden's insistence it should apologize and retract its imputations.[35]

This attitude of infallibility and omniscience has almost inevitably been modified by the changes that have affected the paper as a whole. The principle of division of labor has entered the editorial columns as it has the business office, and the editor who himself once wrote on every subject now engages specialists to write editorials in their own special field and the editorial office may expand to include half a continent. William Lloyd Garrison became "Journalist at Large" after his work on the Liberator ​ceased and the phrase well characterizes the place of many editorial writers. During the war the spirit of infallibility once more asserted itself to an extreme degree, but it seemed a passing phase and the close of the war is bringing a return of moderate judgments and a decrease in that spirit of omniscience which is a characteristic of ignorance.

As personal ownership of newspapers has been superseded by corporate ownership, the place of the editor becomes more and more conventional; as the personal owner continues to be the editor, he tends to consider more than formerly the commercial interests of his paper. These changes seem to create the impression, even among newspaper men themselves, that the editorial is declining in importance. "A newspaper is divided into three parts," says a recent novel dealing with the press. "News is the merchandise which it has to sell. Advertising is the by-product that pays the bills. The editorial page is a survival. At its best it analyzes and points out the significance of important news. At its worst, it is a mouthpiece for the prejudices or the projects of whoever runs it. Few people are influenced by it, many are amused by it. It isn't very important nowadays."[36]

To Porritt, it seemed "open to question whether the editorial writer is the power he once was in English journalism . He still helps to keep his party together; but nowadays it is doubtful whether the editorial columns of the daily press make many political converts."[37]

The explanation of these changes in England Porritt somewhat bluntly finds in the reform of the English civil service that has made it impossible for a Government to reward its journalistic supporters by quartering them on the civil establishment,—that there are no very substantial favors of any kind that a Government can confer on the editors or owners of journals; that about all it can do is to give a paper a share in official advertising and to ​send it a few official communications sent out from State Departments, but "neither of these privileges is worth much;" that the number of tickets to the reporters' gallery at Westminster is limited; and that in general the Government can make little return to newspapers that support it.[38] But since Government has often been averse to conferring such favors, even when it has had the opportunity, the explanation is scarcely satisfactory. Canning indicated to William Jerdan under date of June, 1826, that he was most unwilling to make any appointments where the connection of the recipients with the press would make them objectionable.[39] The adoption of the policy of rewarding editors by gift of office that was adopted by Andrew Jackson and long continued by his successors never commended itself to any except to the often unworthy recipients.

Somewhat similar disaffection and complaint of lack of appreciation by government has been found in Germany where the newspapers have been called "poor international newsgatherers" and this has been in part explained by the personnel of the Ger man newspaper office . It can seldom command men of the ability that represent the great London papers in foreign capitals, be cause of the inferior standing of journalists in Germany in comparison with those in Western Europe. Very few select journalism as an occupation because the social prestige belonging to the profession and professional pride among journalists are as undeveloped as when Freytag wrote Die Journalisten.[40] Why this has been so has sometimes been understood by the Germans themselves. Many years ago a writer on the operation of bureaucracy noted the great number of decorations distributed in time of war and acquiesces in it, but he can not refrain from adding,

" But why, in time of peace, military exercise, good drill, good generalship, and the like, should count for more than solid judicialwork, and the like, is not so easy to see."[41] Whether Bismarck's attitude towards the press was cause or result is both uncertain and immaterial, but Bismarck himself ​spoke in contemptuous terms of the press, and foreign and German writers on the press of Germany during his time refer to the low social position of editors and press correspondents,—"no foreign correspondent can be received at the German court;" "editors are paid small salaries and are not in the highest social circles;" "journalists are a pack of fellows too lazy to work and too illiterate to be schoolmasters of children;" "journalism in the Fatherland is the calling for those who, for some reason or other, have never found another calling;" "it carries no dignity, offers no position, involves neither social, political nor literary distinction;" "it is an estate without a status." These characterizations of those connected with the press as given by Bismarck and his contemporaries indicate the difficulties the editor had to over come in Germany during the Imperial régime.

The influences that justify a prominent paper of to-day in saying of a great metropolitan daily that "its editorial page is quite its least worthy part"[42] are not confined to a single paper, or to a single country, and they are more fundamental than the editor's desire to sit in high places. The influence of the editor and of the editorial has apparently been undermined by two important classes of changes that have come within the past fifty years.

The first class is connected with the internal conduct of the press. The relative importance of the editorial has been affected by the development of the great news-collecting agencies. Readers who once turned to the first leader in the London Times for information in regard to forthcoming ministerial decisions would to-day receive the news through the press agencies. The Globe once "foreshadowed more or less distinctly the intentions or the measures of the Government," but newspapers even in 1880 had become so much more powerful in debate than either of the Houses of Parliament that they roused a certain jealousy in official circles,—"Ministers instead of being anxious to prefigure their measures through the press, and so preparing the public mind for them, are jealous of being forestalled by it."[43] The introduction of the headline and the increasing dependence on it for ​the news of the day, together with the growing independence of readers, has also diverted interest from the editorial to the headline. The relation of the leading article of the London Times to the news of the day is scarcely an extreme illustration of the change in importance that has taken place in the editorial. "The article was the place, and the only place, in which the best news was given. … There was, as a rule, no display of such political news elsewhere; there were no headlines. … Whatever may be thought of the new method from other points of view, it must be admitted that the old method gave peculiar power to the leading article. To-day a reader may skip the leading article and yet be sure of not missing any vital piece of news. In The Times of Delane the leading article was the thing which no politician could afford to miss, for it might contain early news nowhere else obtainable. … Thus in various subtle ways the opinion-forming power of the leading article obtained in The Times of Delane an almost pontifical influence."[44]

The publication of numerous signed articles written by experts or by special correspondents has added authoritativeness to the newspaper, but the custom has meant a decline in the influence of the editorial.[45] The apparently increasing migration of editors, sub-editors and reporters from one newspaper to another has given an impression of a certain instability in the conduct of the editorial page. The advertisement has come to be an important medium for conveying information and influencing public opinion,[46] and has thus in large measure supplanted the editorial as the channel through which opinion is reflected, expressed, or moulded. ​The internal conduct of the press thus in part explains the apparently waning power of the editorial.

But a far more important group of causes has been put forth and has been vigorously upheld.

The decline of the editorial is most often attributed to the changes in the business administration of the newspaper. The substitution of the impersonal corporation for the personal owner has necessarily affected adversely the importance of the editorial. The frequent changes in policy that are inevitable when the editor becomes to a certain extent dependent on the corporation tends to uncertainty in the conduct of the editorial page. The growing importance of the business manager, the introduction of what has been termed "the department-store idea," the investment of large capital on which returns are expected—all combine on the business side to limit the influence of the editor.

Yet the problem of what should be the mutual relations between owner and editor and the complaint that each interferes with the other are probably as old as the periodical press itself. The owner may have been termed a patron, the press may have been controlled by a political party, the editor may have been called a hack writer,—whatever the designation applied to the party of either the first or the second part, the friction that has existed between those who hold the purse strings and those in their employ has been well understood . Defoe's difficulties with Fog, Applebee and Mist, have been set forth by all of his biographers. Addison and Steele strove for independence of their patrons, not always successfully. Walpole and his ministry worked through political pamphlets, the Opposition through newspapers.[47]

In the early nineteenth century, William Jerdan writes of his difficulties in conducting the Aurora under the management of a committee of fashionable hotel-keepers and the landlords of the principal inns and taverns at the West End of London,—one was ultra-Tory, one loyal but moderate, one favored the Church, and one the Roman Catholic Church; one was warlike, one a pacifist, one democratic, and one seditious. The editor was therefore al​ways in perplexity in his efforts to effect a compromise between himself on the one side and all these discordant elements on the other side.[48] His Autobiography is filled with accounts of the wranglings of editors and of publishers and owners. The letters mutually exchanged are often abusive and personal to an extent that would not be tolerated to-day.

The lives and letters of John Murray, and of William Blackwood, are filled with accounts of the almost inevitable misunderstandings and disagreements among the owners, publishers, and editors of periodicals.[49]

James Macdonell was brilliant and able, a Liberal in politics and a vigorous opponent of all the policies that Disraeli stood for. "But the curb was put upon the enthusiastic leader writer, with his strong humanitarian views, and he had to see the paper with which he was identified taking a course of which he could not approve."[50]

J. A. Spender says that during his thirty-three years' connection with the press he has seen the power of the editor and writer constantly diminishing and the power of the proprietor constantly increasing. "Journalists can neither do justice to themselves nor serve the public honestly in a syndicated press producing opinion to a pattern designed by its proprietor."[51]

Similar statements have been recently made by Henry Watterson who declared that "he has seen many newspaper properties wrecked by internal dissentions and by the attempt of an ambitious business manager to dominate and control the editorial department."[52]

W. S. Robinson, the editor of the Boston Republican in 1848, found more than once that his editorial had been altered by one ​of the publishers and he was constantly annoyed throughout the presidential campaign of 1848 by the efforts made to bridle his pen. The Republican was reputed to be an anti-slavery paper, but its owners were more timid than its editor and hence this led to the wish to temper the outspoken, vigorous utterances of its courageous editor.[53] More than one instance, however, has been found where so-called disagreements between owners and editors have in reality been not disagreements as to policy, but incompatibility of temperament.[54]

Walt Whitman refers to "rows with the boss"—a leader in the "regular" Democratic organization,—but his recent editors find that "Whitman stood his ground, not only refusing to write what he did not believe but declining to refrain from expressing his strongly held convictions."[55] He remained on the Brooklyn Daily Eagle nearly two years , but left apparently owing to disagreements with the owner and proprietor on the question of the extension of slavery into the recently acquired territories.

So widely has it been assumed, and with apparent reason, that the owner of a paper attempts to control its editorial policy that assurances to the contrary have almost the appearance of ostentatious protests. When the London Echo changed owners, the statement was quickly made that "although Baron Grant was a Conservative in politics, he made no attempt to alter the Radical principles of The Echo."[56] James Grant gave nearly a chapter to "the unpleasant position of editors with newspaper proprietors and committees of management"[57] which Thomas Frost characterized as "rather ludicrous," saying that his experiences have not made him acquainted with "those extreme strains upon the consciences of leader-writers" and that he had been very little interfered with by the proprietors or chief editors of the papers ​with which he had been connected with regard to his manner of dealing with the political and social questions of the day.[58]

G. C. Brodrick who wrote leaders in the London Times from 1860 to 1873 says, "One misgiving which haunted me at the outset proved entirely delusive. It was the fear that I should be expected to write strictly to order, and to advocate views opposed to my own convictions." But he found that if asked to write something he could not approve, another subject was promptly substituted by Delane.[59]

Differences of opinion in 1916 between the New Republic and its financial supporters in regard to candidates for the presidency led to an open letter from its chief financial supporter stating that its owners exercised no supervision over the editorial columns of the paper.[60] The recent transfer of ownership of the New York Evening Post was accompanied by a statement that the transfer would not affect in any way the editorial policy of the paper.[61]

The question in its entirety is closely allied to the fundamental problem of whether an editor should write at all or not,—a question to which E. T. Cook says "high authority, and probably the more general practice, are in favor of [giving] the negative answer."[62] But assuming that most editors do write, it leads to the question as to how far voluntarily and consciously the editor places his pen at the service of his employers, how far the theory prevails and is upheld "that the function of a political journalist resembles that of a barrister; the hired pleader paid to make the best of a case, good or bad; bound to his brief, and in no way held to compromise his honour by subordinating private opinions of his own."[63]

​The situation has seemed to others comparable to that of the stenographer who takes dictation and transcribes his notes on the typewriter,—a process that involves no ethical demand for an agreement between what he has written and his own personal beliefs. Certainly in the early days of the newspaper, when Grub Street flourished, writers for periodicals were considered in much this light. Men wrote with equal facility on both sides of a question, and they are condemned to-day. But inventions have not shifted the responsibility from the human to the metal machine and while the early editor was apparently not over-sensitive to a condition that demanded that his right hand should not know what his left hand wrote, he can no longer plead this justification. If he continues his connection with a paper whose policies have changed, he does so with a full realization of the principle involved. "The Pall Mall Gazette has always been more remarkable for its influence upon opinion than for its commercial success," was a general belief once expressed in print.[64] Its influence was undoubtedly explained, at least in large part, by the absolute certainty of its readers that its leaders expressed the personal convictions of its editors. While Frederick Greenwood was its editor, he had personally opposed the policies of Gladstone. This led to a rupture with the proprietor, and therefore to changes, and to demands that Greenwood could not meet and as a matter of personal honor he resigned.[65] When Zola, in addressing English journalists, "likened some journalists to mere writing-machines at the beck and call of a superior," he was reminded that "on two occasions when there had been a change in the proprietorship of the Pall Mall Gazette the editors and the bulk of their staff had quitted the paper to uphold their opinions elsewhere," while later "during the Boer war, various editors and others threw up their posts rather than write contrary to their convictions."[66]

The situation was reversed when Bernard Gillam drew caricatures of the Republican presidential candidate for Puck in 1884. Early in the campaign Judge was started by Republicans to counteract the influence of Puck "and Gillam went over to the ​younger journal to advocate with his pencil the candidate he had tattooed."[67]

How far then does the editor control the policy of the press, how far is it controlled by the owner?[68] The question, as has been seen, is a persistent one and no question connected with the press has been answered with more sweeping generalizations than this. Yet in this, as in every other question connected with the press, no one answer fits all cases. Editors and editorials differ in different countries, they differ at different times in the same country, and an editor does not always agree with himself.

In France the article de fond is often an expression of opinion by a well-known man and his views do not necessarily correspond with those of the paper itself,—the paper is perhaps most often read from an intellectual curiosity to see what the editor or a special writer may say on a somewhat academic question.

But in Germany "the fear of the law is the one great plague of the German editor's life," wrote Dawson in 1901. "So frequent are prosecutions of editors that many newspapers are compelled to maintain on their staffs what are known as 'sitting editors' whose special function it is to serve in prison the terms of detention that may be awarded for a too liberal exercise of the critical faculty."[69] The government does not own the press, but both editors and owners have in the past yielded to its superior power.

A volume would be needed to show how in England the editor and the editorial have changed from the days when Defoe was playing a double part and while openly in the employ of Mist, an ardent Jacobite, he was secretly in the service of the Government ​and thus able not only to temper Mist's anti-Hanoverian bias, but also to give the Government secret information in regard to its opponents,[70] to the days when the aristocratic Londoner turned to the first leader of The Times to learn that Peel had determined to revoke the corn laws;[71] from the days when "the chief and sometimes the sole equipment needed for the discharge of the editorial duties was scissors and paste,"[72] to the days when it is said, "Leader-writing of a responsible journalist taxes every faculty. Judgment, fluency, accuracy, literary skill, all must be there; and they must be always ready. No waiting for the happy mood. Write with speed, write at once, write well: only so many hours lie between you and the most critical and competent audience in the world;"[73] from the eighteenth century remark, "I will make no comments of my own in this paper, as I assume that other people have sense enough to make reflections for themselves,"[74] to the twentieth century statement that "an editor has not only to supply his readers with the latest and truest information, he has to furnish them with ideas. … For the multitude the leading article is the obvious short-cut to convictions."[75]

​It must be apparent that no off-hand statement that the editor controls the policy of the press or that he and the paper are both controlled by the owner is of weight unless it takes into consideration the factors of time and place. Equally necessary is it to remember the variations among editors and owners and even the variations in the moods and policies of individual editors. A singularly astute review of a life of Samuel Bowles clearly shows that his theory of journalism was not the same at all stages of his career, that he came to allow his regular correspondents to wreak their spite on his friends, that he allowed the Republican to give currency to charges of implication in the Crédit-Mobilier bribery on the part of Henry M. Dawes because he knew his readers would take an interest in them, not because he believed them,—"an evasion of personal responsibility, under the guise of a highly virtuous independence."[76]

But a very different problem is presented when the question is raised as to how far the editorial expresses public opinion and how far it carries in itself a guarantee that justifies the historian in making use of it. It must be obvious that here also no categorical answer can be given, since the answer must be conditioned by the time, country, and characteristics of the paper in which it appears. The function of the editorial differs much in different countries,[77] much at different times,[78] and much in different sections of the same country,[79] while the importance of the editorial and of other parts of the newspaper have varied at different times. If at one time the generals of an army trembled before the war correspondent,[80] it is the war department and the ​ministry as a whole that tremble before the editor and owner of a string of newspapers.[81]

The editorial has thus seemed to be drawn in opposite directions; one set of influences has tended to minimize its importance while another has given it a standing and a power it has never had before. It is the part of the historian in his use of the newspaper to weigh the influences behind the editorial and to measure its importance in his own work.

Yet when all has been said in regard to the declining influence of the editorial, it must be remembered that there is much to be said on the other side and that it is more nearly true to say that the position of the editorial has changed, and that its influence is being felt in new and other ways. The editor of the old school was born, not made, and, like the doctor and the lawyer, he believed that a person could learn the secrets of the profession only in a newspaper office. The editor of to-day has had a college or a university training; he probably was connected with one of the college papers, and he may have had the added training of a school of journalism. If he may not technically fulfil the specific requirements for an editor prescribed in a recent press law promulgated in China,—that he must be over thirty years of age, suffer from no nervous disease, been undeprived of civil rights, belong neither to the military nor the naval professions, and be neither an administrative or a judicial officer, nor a student,[82]—he conforms to them in effect. Maturity of years and of judgment, mental balance, upright character, freedom from official entanglements are the qualifications everywhere to-day demanded in an editor. Moreover, the individual editor is to-day not infrequently merged into an editorial board,—a change advocated in influential circles as assuring complete independence and impartiality in editorials, but by no means universally commended.

The country editor is changing as well as his city brother.[83] ​The rural free delivery brings the city paper to farms and villages, but the city paper does not supersede the country paper. The country editor emphasizes still more the local news, and pushes ever farther back the frontiers of his dominion,—he becomes more and more the man of authority in the community because his opinions tend more and more to be based on knowledge. "Closest to the paper," says Harger, "nearest to their home life, its hopes and its aspirations, the country editor is at the foundation of journalism."[84]

It is inevitable that with the changing characteristics of the editor a change in the editorial should result. This change is manifest in the wider range of subjects chosen for editorial comment, in the greater breadth of treatment, and in the improvement in the method of treatment. The subjects chosen for editorials have infinitely broadened in scope. The Spirit of the Public Journals; or, the Beauties of American Newspapers, For 1805, a collection from "nearly one hundred vehicles of information" published in 1806, shows editorials or articles on "The Seasons," "Winter," "Return of Spring," "Autumnal Reflections," "Affection," "Love," "Hope," "Truth," "Modesty," "Deceit," "The Idler," "Begin in Time," "Fashion," "The Grave." Local topics were largely the subjects of editorials somewhat later in the century. William Leggett was most definite and concrete in his choice of subjects, but he did not wander from Washington, Albany, or New York City.[85] Much of the same type of editorial as regards both choice of local subjects, and style of writing, as is seen in the selected editorials of William Leggett, is found in a contemporary English work entitled: Spirit of the Metropolitan Conservative Press: Being a Selection of the Best Leading Articles from the London Conservative Journals during the year 1839. In sharp contrast to-day are editorials that consider every phase of human thought and activity the world over.

The subject of the editorial has broadened at the same time that its treatment of all subjects has notably improved. The editorial only somewhat recently recorded a tendency towards ​the "snappy," scrappy, dialogue style of writing affected by many short-story writers,[86] but the reaction against it is coming and to-day the leading editorials in our leading papers have somewhat the character of the best magazine articles. A general survey of an important question, or an exhaustive comment on a single phase of a subject prominently in the public eye may cover the first three columns of a great daily, while in the care taken in the presentation of the subject it may vie with all that is best in literature.

At one time the "sixth column" and the "third leader" were exceptional and they were presumably the work of the regular staff, but to-day the editor calls upon a wide range of occasional editorial contributors with expert knowledge in many fields and this in part explains the broadening of the editorial page both in its interests and in its method of treating them . Modern editorials have been reprinted, as those from the London Times,—"third leaders" that "are meant to turn the reader from affairs and interests of the moment to a consideration 'of man, of nature, and of human life' in their larger, more permanent aspect. In one or another form they represent the daily demand and supply of material for thought. … They are journalism; but in them journalism is extending itself towards, is even becoming, literature."[87] The examination of a large number of editorials leads to the conclusion that never has there been so large a number of editorial columns so well written as can be found to-day.

An evidence of the permanent value of the editorial of to-day in contrast with the elusive, vague, and therefore temporary reflections of the early day, is seen in the growing tendency to collect them into book form. Charles T. Congdon was on the New York Tribune from 1857 to 1863 and his "editorials were so good that they received the unusual honor of republication in a book." [88] What was considered unusual in 1869 has now become the usual. A library might be collected of volumes made up of ​editorials that have appeared since about 1880 and that give promise of being of permanent value from the nature of the subjects treated. Collected from the editorial columns of the press of different countries, they attest the permanent value as literature of much that appeared first in the so-called "ephemeral press."[89]

The editorial not only covers a wider range of subjects than ever before but it discusses them with a breadth and depth not known in the earlier editorial. This has been particularly noticeable during the recent war where the constant comparison between present and past conditions has been possible only because of the fund of exact information at command.[90] This information is made possible in part through the establishment in all great newspaper offices of special libraries under the care of trained librarians. It was considered noteworthy that the Boston Daily Advertiser in the time of Nathan Hale had command of a complete file of the London Times and of other important English, ​French, and German newspapers.[91] The development of "the morgue," or "the dead room" containing biographical material relating to every person even remotely connected with public life, and clippings in regard to every subject of public interest makes information instantly accessible.[92] The editor is and must be prepared for every emergency.

This improvement in the general standard of the editorial has in part been made possible by the great extension of the newspaper plant. Through modern invention and through news-collecting agencies, the whole world has been brought to the sanctum, and the time and energy of the office staff thus released has been turned in the direction of perfecting the various parts of the paper.

The early editorial might claim infallibility of judgment, but the editorial of to-day may with greater justice lay claim to omniscience. The slightest error of statement in regard to events brings on it the satire of its even more omniscient competitors while the danger of a libel suit lurks in every misstatement in regard to an individual. An examination of editorials covering a ​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.[93] 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 ​carried on in the London Gazette after the Restoration[94] and has been generally accepted in spite of the obvious limitations in its use.[95] But even to-day distinctions must be noted in its use. The country editor uses "we," but often with a familiar, personal tone. Editorials on large, important subjects are often written with the home town in mind and in relation to local interests. In the great metropolitan dailies, the "we" that on the editorial page in the early days represented only a single voice has developed into the collective "we" that on the news pages, through the hundreds of significant passages collected by telegraph from editorials all over the country, justifies more than ever before the claim that the press is "the fourth estate."

The charge is often made that the editor has changed his position on important public questions and the implication is conveyed that the change has come from a desire to curry favor with those in authority, or from the still more ambitious plan of becoming the power behind the throne. The charge comes from other members of the press who with mirth resort to "the deadly parallel column" to prove their position,[96]—an effective weapon, but one which can be used in both directions and turned against the press. John Bright once said, "The Times says I repeat myself; the Times says I am guilty of what it calls tautology; the Times says I am always saying the same thing. What I complain of in the Times is that it never says the same thing."[97] Nor was John Bright alone in thinking that The Times never said the same thing. Greville found that "The 'Times' newspaper, always famous for its versatility and inconsistency, has lately produced articles on the Eastern Question on the same day of the most opposite characters, one warlike and firm, the next vehemently ​pacific by some other hand. This is of small importance, but it is indicative of the difference which exists in the Cabinet on the subject, and the explanation of the inconsistency of the 'Times' is to be found in the double influence which acts on the paper."[98]

While these editorial variations have often given rise to pungent criticism, very real difficulties are frequently presented to an editor, as has been recently suggested. An editor starts out to support a Mr. Jones whose intentions seem the best. His methods turn out to be a trifle shady: He makes enemies. Shall the editor continue to support him, pointing out his good qualities for the sake of the end in view, or shall he denounce Mr. Jones?—Every editor has to meet this situation.[99]

Other complications may arise as when editorials are written by persons at a distance who are not known to be connected with the papers for which they write. Kinglake says that Delane had once told him that while at Oxford he had supported himself "by writing leading articles for country newspapers."[100] Jerdan considered that editing provincial papers in London was "just as effective as if the writer resided in the place of publication,"[101]—an opinion that would not receive unanimous support.

The puzzling alternative in regard to policies to be followed is not the only one that confronts an editor. Is it one of his prerogatives to change a manuscript that has been accepted for publication? Editors have frequently assumed that it is,—much to the discomfiture of their contributors.

Leslie Stephen, writing of the period from 1856 to 1861, says: "I believe that the 'Edinburgh Review' still acted upon the precedent set by Jeffrey, according to which a contributor, especially, of course, a young contributor, was regarded as supplying raw material which might be rather arbitrarily altered by the editor."[102] How this was regarded by contributors is indicated in a ​letter from Carlyle to Napier, November 23, 1830, in which he says: "My respected friend your predecessor [Jeffrey] had some difficulty with me in adjusting the respective prerogatives of Author and Editor, for though not, as I hope, insensible to fair reason, I used sometimes to rebel against what I reckoned mere authority, and this partly perhaps as a matter of literary conscience; being wont to write nothing without studying if possible to the bottom, and writing always with an almost painful feeling of scrupulosity, that light editorial hacking and hewing to right and left was in general nowise to my mind."[103] Napier also heard from Jeffrey who wrote, "I fear Carlyle will not do, that is, if you do not take the liberties and the pains with him that I did, by striking out freely, and writing in occasionally."[104] Macaulay was perhaps less sensitive; at all events, he wrote to Napier that he quite approved the alterations Napier had made in his article on Mackintosh.[105]

Mrs. Gaskell took umbrage at what she regarded as a reflection on Mr. Gaskell's ability as a critic. She wrote Dickens, objecting to "the purple patches with which he was anxious to embroider her work." All her work had been criticized by her husband, she wrote, and therefore she felt that what was good enough to pass his scrutiny was good enough for the public. She "keenly resented any alteration in her manuscript, and wrote off in great haste to Dickens," who had changed a complimentary allusion to Pickwick Papers in the first Cranford paper, "demanding the withdrawal of her sketch," but it was too late as it had already been sent to the printer of Household Words.[106]

Dickens apparently had little hesitation in altering the manuscripts of his contributors and his letters show the "delicate changes" and the rejection of titles that he made in them,[107] although himself indignant when the slightest change was made in his own manuscripts.[108]

​Hazlitt found that "some Editors, moreover, have a way of altering the first paragraph: they have then exercised their privileges, and let you alone for the rest of the chapter;" that "Some Editors will let you praise nobody; others will let you blame nobody;" and that "Editors are a 'sort of tittle-tattle—' difficult to deal with, dangerous to discuss."[109]

It was to be expected that the fastidious Delane would make editorial emendations. "Much that appeared in The Times under the head of leading articles was so amended by his pen that it was in reality Delane's handiwork," acknowledges his biographer.[110] Henry Reeve, called by Delane "Il Pomposo," says that he rebelled against these editorial changes made in his leaders and he writes, "The moment an attempt was made to interfere with me and to garble my articles, I resigned [from The Times], and fell back on the 'Edinburgh Review'."[111]

O'Shea found sub-editorial tinkering with his manuscript "an intolerable nuisance" and often thought "changes were made out of pure wantonness to show one's privilege of intermeddling."[112] Paris was probably infected with this feeling at that time, for Theodore Child wrote, "It is a common complaint on the part of the representatives of the English press in Paris that their letters are mercilessly mutilated in the editorial room in London."[113]

The benevolent Howells, in giving an account of his Atlantic stewardship, says that "sometimes it [the proof-reading] took the character of original work, in that liberal Atlantic tra​dition of bettering the authors by editorial transposition and paraphrase, either in the form of suggestion or of absolute correction."[114]

Even editors themselves are not immune from the blue pencil. When Blanchard Jerrold was the editor of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, Thomas Catling was sub-editor. At one time the latter told Lloyd that an article Lloyd had disapproved was written by Jerrold. "That," said the owner, "has nothing to do with it; I look to you to see that everything is kept right." "From that time onward," continues Catling, "though the editor's name appeared on the front page of the paper, his copy had to be closely supervised by the sub-editor."[115]

The troubles of editors with contributors do not end with the wrath expressed by them over the editorial changes made in their manuscripts. Often contributors claim that certain fields and subjects belong to them and that the editor should not allow others to poach on their preserves. To one such, Macvey Napier wrote with some asperity, "You think that I ought to have rejected an article on the Italian Economists by Spring Rice, on the ground that the whole province of Political Economy ought to be kept sacred for yourself. Now, it is impossible for me to agree to this. No man connected with the Review, none even of its founders, has ever claimed an exclusive right over any particular province."[116]

Brougham's infirmities of temper led Napier into frequent difficulties on the same score. "Pray send off your countermand to Macaulay," he wrote the harassed editor to whom Macaulay had offered an article on the politics of France after the Restoration, "I can trust no one but myself with it," and he plaintively adds, "Jeffrey always used to arrange it so upon delicate questions." Macaulay was naturally much vexed and so writes to Napier at some length, but he yielded to the imperious Brougham.[117]

​Another long controversy ensued over the question of whether Brougham or Macaulay should write an article on Chatham for the Edinburgh. Napier wrote Brougham who sent the article, "I know, however, I shall be blamed (but not by Macaulay himself) for taking the subject out of his hands, and that this article will be cited as another proof of what is frequently dinned in my ears,—my supposed subsurviency to your wishes." Brougham testily replied, "That he [Macaulay] has any better right to monopolize Lord Chatham, I more than doubt. That he would have done it better, I also doubt:" and he begs Napier "to pluck up a little courage, and not be alarmed every time any of the little knot of threateners annoy you. They want to break off all kind of connection between me and the Edinburgh Review. I have long seen it." And he again fretfully writes Napier, "I thought the act of not letting Macaulay do an article on Lord Chatham, was nothing out of the way."[118]

Dickens was also a troublesome contributor and when a reviewer of his American Notes[119] had represented him as having gone to America in the cause of international copyright—at this distance in time a somewhat inadequate cause for rousing ire in celestial minds—he wrote to Napier in hot and voluble haste:

"I am at a loss to divine who its author is. I know he read in some cut-throat American paper, this and other monstrous statements, which I could at any time have converted into sickening praise by the payment of some fifty dollars. I know that he is perfectly aware that his statement in the Review, in corroboration of these lies, would be disseminated through the whole of the United States; and that my contradiction will never be heard of. And though I care very little for the opinion of any person who will set the statement of an American editor (almost invariably an atrocious scoundrel) against my character and conduct, such as they may be; still, my sense of justice does revolt from this most cavalier and careless exhibition of me to a whole people, as a traveller under false pretences, and a disappointed intriguer. The better the acquaintance with America, the more defenceless and more inexcusable such conduct is. For I solemnly declare (and appeal to any man but the writer of this ​paper, who has travelled in that country, for confirmation of my statement) that the source from which he drew the 'information' so recklessly put forth again in England, is infinitely more obscene, disgusting, and brutal, than the very worst Sunday newspaper that has ever been printed in Great Britain."[120]

The editor's troubles with contributors have not been confined to the comparatively harmless field of literary criticism. In an article for the Edinburgh,[121] Brougham severely criticized the Melbourne ministry and referred to the "secretaries," and "underlings" whom the ministry had allowed to "think for it." Brougham was disaffected towards the Whigs, yet expected his strictures on the party to be printed in the Review, although, as Napier wrote him, "The Edinburgh Review, I need not tell you, ever has been attached to the Whig Party." Macaulay later protested to Napier that Brougham, "not having a single vote in either House of Parliament at his command except his own, is desirous to make the Review his organ" and "he has begun to use the word Whig as an epithet of reproach."[122] When later Empson was consulted in regard to reviewing a recent book of Brougham's, he wrote with asperity: "His [Brougham's] position with the party, the Review, and you, is sufficiently notorious to make a review in the Edinburgh of any work of his one of the most delicate operations possible."[123]

With change of names and dates, the troubles between editors and contributors suggested by the history of the Edinburgh Review are those found everywhere in the periodical press.[124] The editor feels that he is limited by the temperament of his contributors and the contributor languishes under the heavy hand of the editor. The editor must not offend the public, and the contributor must not offend the editor. With exceptions almost equal in number to those that prove the rule, the student of history must find the editor of the periodical press essentially ​conservative, a man with his hand on the public pulse, an observer rather than a leader, a critic rather than an initiator. The controlling desire of a great modern newspaper is to give its readers the news, and the news therefore may show progressive action, the breaking of precedents, the activities of great organizations formed to uphold righteousness and peace. The editorial of the same paper, especially if scrutinized by an editorial board, may in the same issues show in spirit a tendency to lag behind the news, to be conservative and even timid and reactionary in expressing opinions concerning the effect of the news published in its own columns.

The important questions concerning the editor center, for the historian, around his reputed control by the proprietor, the influence exerted over him by governments on the one hand and on the other hand the influence he exerts over governments, and the decline in influence of the editorial while at the same time it has improved in accuracy and definiteness of statement, in good temper, in grasp of subject and breadth of treatment, and in its general authoritativeness.

But quite apart from these large phases of his work the position of an editor may involve situations that may bring many heart-burnings, much depression of spirit, and profound discouragement and questioning as to the real importance of his work. The conscientious editor may regret that he is not reaching certain classes in society, but he may himself find no adequate explanation for it; he realizes that his editorials are not read, but he does not know whether their tone is too aggressive, or too conciliatory, too laudatory, or too sarcastic. His divergence of opinion from the opinions of his subordinates may be as troublesome as is his divergence from the views of proprietors. He may cringe before the fear of offending local interests or high officials of state and cry out with the Pious Editor,

"I du believe in Freedom's cause
Ez fur away ez Payris is."[125]

He may be the champion of a dying cause as was Paul de Cassagnac who upheld the Empire and opposed the Republic until his death in 1904.[126] The editor may support an apparently ​hopeless cause and at last see it win, as Madame Adam long promoted the policy of revanche as a means of securing the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.[127]

"The Editor is doomed," says a recent writer, "for the public will pay for news, and not for notions."[128]

The editor may be doomed, but his problems still persist and will not down. The names and the times of editors might at any period be exchanged for those quite otherwise and the same troubles would still confront him,—differences in degree and differences in constituencies would not alter the basic situation. Leslie Stephen has shown that in the eighteenth century Defoe considered that the journal "supplied the initiative and leverage for all movements of political and social reform;" that Addison and Steele tried to be independent of patrons and to reflect the opinions of those about them; that Steele believed in "strong writing;" that Swift was indifferent to patronage; that Cobbett appealed to the masses; and that Leigh Hunt made journalism literature.

But in 1810 the Reverend James Beresford wrote The Twelve Labours of an Editor, separately pitted against those of Hercules. The first three of these labors he found to be "beating the devouring critic," "overcoming innumerable errors," and "grasping the meaning of his author." He found that "the editor … is to be regarded as the Enemy, and Avenger of the antisocial Passions, under the two main divisions—those of open, brutal, Fury; and deadly, poisonous malice." Another labor of the editor was pouring "his river of reformation through every contaminated stall and stye." He was to draw his "goose-quill upon the men, and welcome; but—let THE LADIES alone!" And his final labor was to expose evil.—Have the problems of the editor conspicuously changed since they were thus stated more than a century ago?

But the editorial at least is not doomed , and it takes on a new lease of life, although not necessarily of influence, as new forms of increasing its circulation are devised. Not only are the editorials of a single editor and the editorials from a single news​paper collected and published in book form, but the editorials of one paper are reprinted on the editorial pages of other papers, they are reprinted as advertisements, they are copied in the news columns of the press, and they are collectively copied in an effort to secure a consensus of public opinion on important questions.

In a collection recently made of the editorials and various notes contributed to the Syracuse Journal during the years 1863–1865 by the late Willard Fiske, the editor of the volume expresses the hope that through them "incidentally a partial glimpse may be afforded of a standard American newspaper half a century ago."[129] Not only does this particular volume fulfil the hopes of its editor, but it shows that, in spite of all the transformations the editorial has undergone, to its readers the editorial is "the paper."

  1. ↑ William Lee, Daniel Defoe: His Life and Recently Discovered Writings, I, 273.

    This is also the opinion of W . P . Trent, How to Know Defoe, p. 150.

  2. ↑ These contributions are comprised in Lee's Daniel Defoe, vols. II-III.
  3. ↑ Leslie Stephen, "The Evolution of Editors," National Review, February, 1896, 26: 770–785.
  4. ↑ E. C. Cook, Literary Influences in Colonial Newspapers, 1704–1750.
  5. ↑ F. Hudson states that out of two hundred newspapers in America at that time, from twenty to twenty-five were edited and controlled by aliens.—History of Journalism in the United States from 1690 to 1872, p. 159.
  6. ↑ S. K. Lothrop, "Memoir of Nathan Hale, LL. D.," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1880–81, XVIII, 270-279.
  7. ↑ Roscoe C. E. Brown finds the first use of the title by an American paper in the Boston News-Letter of March 7, 1728. See his interesting letter in the New York Times, March 14, 1915.
  8. ↑ Correspondence between the publisher and the editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, daily press, January 1, 1915.
  9. ↑ A. A. Watts, Life of Alaric Watts, I, 163–164.
  10. ↑ The New York Evening Post points its statement with "a specimen, rare in our time, of this style of composition, "drawn from the Macon, Georgia, Telegraph and the Albany, Georgia, Herald .—September 26, 1914 .
  11. ↑ J. Richard Beste, The Wabash: or Adventures of an English Gentleman's Family in the Interior of America.—I, 289.
  12. ↑ Religion, Theology and Morals, by Harvey W. Scott. Forty Years Editor-in-Chief Morning Oregonian of Portland. Edited by Leslie M. Scott, 2 vols., 1917.

    This relationship is also indicated in the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, June, 1913,—a Harvey W. Scott memorial number.

  13. ↑ Religion, Theology and Morals, I, 91–94; II, Appendix, 349–350.
  14. ↑ Thomas Carlyle, "Signs of the Times," Edinburgh Review, June, 1829, 49: 439– 459; republished in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, English edition, II, 230–252.
  15. ↑ Life of John Sterling, pp. 228–229.
  16. ↑ Abbot Gasquet, Lord Acton and his Circle, p . 372.
  17. ↑ A Soldier of Conscience, pp. 13–15.
  18. ↑ A. A. Watts, Alaric Watts, I, 156 .
  19. ↑ S. J. Reid, Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid, p . 37.
  20. ↑ My Life's Pilgrimage, p. 81.
  21. ↑ Greville Memoirs, III, 159, 169.
  22. ↑ J. Pendleton, "The Humors of Newspaper Editing," Littell's Living Age, August 1, 1896, 210: 305-309.
  23. ↑ H. Simonis, The Street of Ink, pp. 4–5.
  24. ↑ New York Times, August 8, 1918; Secretary Baker on the status of newspaper men with reference to the draft, ib., August 9, 1918.

    See also ruling of United States immigration officials in Montreal that a newspaper man is a member of a learned profession . —New York Evening Post, March 4, 1922.

  25. ↑ W. Lee, Daniel Defoe, I, 84-85; Theophila Carlile Campbell, The Battle of the Press.
  26. ↑ Leaves from the Life of a Special Correspondent, II, 179.
  27. ↑ J. A. Porter, The Modern Newspaper, p. 9.
  28. ↑ G . S. Layard, A Great "Punch" Editor, Being the Life, Letters, and Diaries of Shirley Brooks, pp. 250- 251.
  29. ↑ E. Porritt, The Englishman at Home, p. 323.
  30. ↑ Democracy in America, I, 200–201.
  31. ↑ A. I. Dasent, John Thadeus Delane, I, 55.
  32. ↑ L. S. [Leslie Stephen], The "Times" on the American War, pp. 105-106.
  33. ↑ Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by C. E. Norton, I, 358-359.
  34. ↑ Correspondence of J. L. Motley, edited by G. W. Curtis, II, 111-116.
  35. ↑ John Morley, Life of Richard Cobden, pp. 592-606.
  36. ↑ S. H. Adams, The Clarion, p. 99.
    A similar opinion has been expressed by H . W. Massingham who discusses the theory that the editor may disappear as the news side of the paper is more and more developed . "If nature has no further use for him, in Heaven 's name let him go . The world did very well without him once, and will do so again ."—" The Ethics of Editing," National Review, April, 1900, 35: 256–261.
  37. ↑ E . Porritt, The Englishman at Home, p. 319 .
  38. ↑ E. Porritt, The Englishman at Home, pp. 320-321.
  39. ↑ W. Jerdan, Autobiography, IV, 160-164.
  40. ↑ R. H. Fife, Jr., The German Empire between Two Wars, p. 364.
  41. ↑ Friedrich von Schulte, "Bureaucracy and its Operation in Germany and Austria-Hungary," Contemporary Review, March, 1880, 37: 432-458.
  42. ↑ "Endowing Newspapers," The Nation, July 20, 1918, 107: 60–61.
  43. ↑ "London Evening Newspapers," New York Nation, October 7, 1880, 31: 250–251.
  44. ↑ Sir Edward Cook, Delane of "The Times," pp. 288–289.
  45. ↑ "The collective expression of journalistic policy known as the 'leader' has been extensively superseded by the communication from the specialist or expert, vouched for by the signature of an individual."—T. H. S. Escott, Masters of English Journalism, p. 20.

    "The new journalism means the organized co-operation of many trained workers, directed not to the expression of one person's thought, but to the interpretation of all the thoughts that agitate society."—R. E. Day, Proceedings at the Unveiling of a Memorial to Horace Greeley, 1914, p. 142.

  46. ↑ S. K. Lothrop says that the Boston Weekly Messenger was "the first weekly periodical in America published without advertisements, and depending for its support upon its political, historical, and literary interest and value."—"Memoir of Hon. Nathan Hale," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, December, 1880, 18: 270–279.
  47. ↑ Milton Percival, Political Ballads Illustrating the Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, p. xiii.
  48. ↑ Autobiography, I, chap. XII.
  49. ↑ S. Smiles, Memoirs and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, 2 vols.; Mrs. Oliphant, The Annals of a Publishing House; William Blackwood and His Sons, 3 vols.
  50. ↑ S. J. Reid, Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid, p . 135; W. R. Nicoll, James Macdonell, pp. 294–295.
  51. ↑ "The Editor vs. the Proprietor," in the Westminster Gazette, cited by the Literary Digest, April 13, 1918, 57: 29–30.

    The relations between editor and proprietor are discussed by A. W. à Beckett, The à Becketts of "Punch," chap. X , "Advice Gratis," pp. 293–310.

  52. ↑ New York Tribune, June 26, 1917.
  53. ↑ "Warrington" Pen-Portraits, pp. 39–41.
  54. ↑ This seems to have been the case while Carl Schurz and E. L. Godkin were associated on the New York Evening Post, 1881–83.

    Somewhat similar incompatibility between John Walter and Delane led to the vesting of full editorial control in Delane.

  55. ↑ C. Rodgers and J. Black, eds., The Gathering of the Forces, by Walt Whitman, I, xxx.
  56. ↑ J. C. Francis, Notes by the Way, p. 30.
  57. ↑ The Newspaper Press, II, chap. XVII.
  58. ↑ Reminiscences of a Country Journalist, p. 133.
  59. ↑ Memories and Impressions, p. 130.
  60. ↑ Willard Straight, New Republic, October 28, 1916, 8: 313–314.
  61. ↑ New York Evening Post, August 1, 1918.
  62. ↑ Edmund Garrett, p. 84.

    "A literary team is handled with the best results when the holder of the reins leaves the actual work to be done by those whom he directs."—T. H. S. Escott, Masters of English Journalism, p. 155.

  63. ↑ E. T. Cook, Edmund Garrett, p. 82.

    The author cites an American journalist who told the story: "A political 'boss' noticing some able silver articles in a Chicago paper, said, 'Introduce me to that man; I should like to see him President of the United States'. Afterwards he was equally struck by some able gold articles in a New York paper, and said, 'Introduce me to that man; I should like to see him shot'. It was the same man."—Id.

  64. ↑ "London Evening Newspapers," New York Nation, October 7, 1880, 31: 250–251.
  65. ↑ Id.
  66. ↑ E. A. Vizetelly, Émile Zola, p. 330.
  67. ↑ B. Matthews, "American Comic Journalism," Bookman, November, 1918, 48: 282–287.
  68. ↑ Bliss Perry gives an interesting sidelight on the opinion of publishers on this point in his account of the relations between the first publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, and "the editor who was never the editor," but who was alluded to by the head of the firm "in comfortable proprietary phrase" as "our literary man."—Atlantic Monthly, November, 1907, 100: 658–678; Park Street Papers, pp. 203–277.
  69. ↑ W. H. Dawson, German Life in Town and Country, chap. XIII, "The Newspaper and its Readers."

    E. Poole, in "The Sitting Editor and the Russian Police," characterizes the custom as a trick common for decades from St. Petersburg to Siberia.—World To-Day, May, 1906, 10: 509–510; F. C. Trench, "The Russian Journalistic Press," Blackwood's, July, 1890, 148: 115–126.

  70. ↑ W. Lee gives six letters from Defoe to Charles De La Faye, April 12–June 13, 1718, that show this.—Daniel Defoe; His Life and Recently Discovered Writings, I, ix–xviii.
  71. ↑ E. T. Cook, Delane of "The Times," p. 21.
  72. ↑ W. J. Couper, The Edinburgh Periodical Press, I, 115.
  73. ↑ Cited in W. R. Nicoll, James Macdonell, p. 281.
  74. ↑ Cited by John Pendleton , "The Humors of Newspaper Editing," Littell's Living Age, August 1, 1896, 210: 305–309.
  75. ↑ R. Lucas, Lord Glenesk and the "Morning Post," p. 155.

    It is interesting to compare the editor of to-day with the ideal editor as he seemed to William Leggett. In an editorial on "Leading Public Opinion" he describes him at length.—The Plaindealer, January 21, 1837. Reprinted in his Political Writings, II, 167–170.

    Curiously enough, while elaborate qualifications have been listed for every other person connected with the staff of a newspaper, comparatively few have been noted in regard to the editor.—Gifford of the Quarterly believed "that inviolable secrecy was one of the prime functions of an editor." He therefore "never attempted to vindicate himself, or to reveal the secret as to the writers of reviews."—S. Smiles, Memoirs and Correspondence of the Late John Murray, II, 176.—"Mr. Jowett included in his 'Maxims for Statesmen and Others' Never Tell. Upon no others is the maxim more binding than upon editors. To respect confidences is with them a counsel of prudence as well as a law of honour; for no statesman is likely to run the risk of being betrayed a second time."—Sir Edward Cook, Delane of "The Times," pp. 119–120.

  76. ↑ The Nation, December 31, 1885, 41: 553–554.
  77. ↑ In England the editorial has sought to influence public opinion, in France it seeks to act on the government, while in Germany it may be influenced by the government.

    "'The Times,' said Lord Clarendon , 'forms, guides, or reflects—no matter which—the public opinion of England.'"—Sir Edward Cook, Delane of "The Times," p. 294.

  78. ↑ "The medium through which Delane wielded his influence was a journalistic instrument of which the force has in later days been somewhat blunted—the instrument of the leading article."—Ib., p. 287.
  79. ↑ In the small country paper the editorial is almost disappearing, or has become stereotyped and conventional.
  80. ↑ "In his [W. H. Russell's] hands, correspondence from the field really became a power before which generals began to quail."—E. L. Godkin, cited in R. Ogden, Life and Letters, II, 101–102.
  81. ↑ Cf. A. G. Gardiner, "The 'Times' and the Man who makes it," Atlantic Monthly, January, 1917, 119: 111–122, and Norman Angell, "The Problem of Northcliffe," New Republic, January 27, 1917, 9: 344–347.
  82. ↑ Special correspondence of the New York Evening Post, May 13, 1914.
  83. ↑ Some of the early country editors were pamphleteers rather than editors. F. W. Scott cites the case of J. B. Turner who in 1843 edited the Illinois Statesman. The Quincy Whig commented jocosely on one of his thirteen-column editorials and was gravely told in reply that the actual length was only eleven columns.—Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814–1879, p. lxxiv.
  84. ↑ C. M. Harger, "The Country Editor of To-day," Atlantic Monthly, January, 1907, 99: 89–96.
  85. ↑ A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett, edited by Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., 2 vols., 1840.
  86. ↑ F. N. Scott gave timely warning that "our future managing editors will do well to set it down in their Tables that 'Punch,' 'Human Interest,' and 'Heart-Throbs' are not, in modern journalism, the 'Whole Thing'."—The Nation, July 25, 1917, 105: 91.
  87. ↑ J. W. Mackail, Modern Essays, p. x.
  88. ↑ W. H. Rideing, Many Celebrities and a few Others, p. 49. Charles T. Congdon, Tribune Essays, New York, 1869.
  89. ↑ Many editorials have been collected by different journals and published collectively:—Essays from the London Times, 2 vols., 1852; Mornings of the Recess, from the London Times, 1861–64; Casual Essays of the Sun; Seen by the Spectator, The Outlook; College Journalism, J. Bruce, and J. V. Forrestal, eds.

    One of the earliest, if not the first, of these republications was made in the latter part of the seventeenth century. John Dunton, his brother-in-law, Samuel Wesley (the father of John Wesley), and Richard Sault published the Athenian Mercury from March, 1691 until June, 1697. Dunton published in four volumes a selection from these Mercuries and issued it as the Athenian Oracle. John Underhill has recently collected into one volume "all that is most interesting and valuable in the four volumes of the Athenian Oracle." See introduction to the volume.

    The counterpart of this is found in the practice of leading editors of collecting their own most important editorials:—E. L. Godkin, Critical and Social Essays; George Williams Curtis, Ars Recte Vivendi; Fabian Franklin, People and Problems; A. G. Gardiner, Pillars of Society; and Prophets, Priests and Kings.

    These titles are but suggestive and illustrative of the very large number of works of this character.

  90. ↑ The New York Times, for example, compared the surprise victory of the British at Cambrai with the surprise victory of Stonewall Jackson over Hooker at Chancellorsville , "which has hitherto stood as a model."—December 3, 1917.

    A mass of material on this point may be found in The War from This Side,—two volumes of editorials collected from the Philadelphia North American, July, 1914–July, 1916; The Gravest 366 Days, editorials collected from the New York Evening Mail, 1916; E. S. Martin, The Diary of a Nation, 1917; A. G. Gardiner, War Lords; and in numerous other volumes of collected editorials.

  91. ↑ S. K . Lothrop, "Memoir of Nathan Hale," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1880–81, 18: 270–279.

    The New York Evening Post opens its library to the use of students.—Advertisement, January 19, 1918.

  92. ↑ L. E. Theiss, "The Morgue Man," The Outlook, September 14, 1912, 102: 83–88.

    "The morgue" is the clipping bureau of the newspaper, but individual workers use the same system in a limited way . See Robert Luce, "The Clipping Bureau and the Library," in Special Libraries, September–October, 1913, 4: 152–157.

    The New York Evening Post publishes, and frequently revises, a pamphlet giving the list of its obituaries in readiness, character sketches, and list of subject envelopes.

    The importance attached to the "morgue" by journalists themselves is indicated by the reply reputed to have been made by a city editor to a Japanese who had asked what constituted the most important element in the oft-repeated "power of the press." "'Here is your answer,' said the city editor, taking him to the journalistic morgue. 'The newspaper keeps its fingers on the past and its eyes on the future.' In 'dead' news rest such important clues for the future as well as of the past, and such an infallible, indelible record and guide that the statement of the trained editor was well chosen."—G . J. Nathan, "Journalistic 'Morgues," Bookman, August, 1910, 31: 597–599.

    An exceptionally good account of the "morgue", is that of J. F. Kwapil, "The 'Morgue' as a Factor in Journalism," Library Journal, May 15, 1921, 46: 443–446.

  93. ↑ "The British Newspaper," Dublin University Magazine, March, 1863, 61: 359–376.
  94. ↑ J. B. Williams, "John Milton, Journalist," Oxford and Cambridge Review, April, 1912, 18: 73–88.
  95. ↑ M. M'D. Bodkin finds that "The mysterious editorial 'we' is vaguely suggestive of an oracle kept tame on the newspaper premises and ready to deliver impromptu and infallible pronouncements on every subject under heaven, for the leader writer must know something of everything, or at least successfully assume a knowledge if he have it not."—Recollections of an Irish Judge, p. 245.
  96. ↑ It was undoubtedly with peculiar pleasure that the London Nation, of October 12, 1918, printed a selection in fulsome praise of Emperor William from the Daily Mail of June 20, 1910.
  97. ↑ Cited by G. M. Trevelyan, Life of John Bright, p. 250.
  98. ↑ The Greville Memoirs, VII, 744 , July 12, 1853.—Lord Palmerston advocated a vigorous policy while Lord Aberdeen favored peace.
  99. ↑ "Editorial Dilemma," New Republic, October 23, 1915, 4: 299.
  100. ↑ A. W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea, IV, Appendix XV.
  101. ↑ Autobiography, I, chap. XV.—Jerdan says that, for a number of years, he thus edited the Sheffield Mercury, and also a Birmingham paper, an Irish journal, and other papers in various parts of the country. It seems possible that Jerdan has confused sending contributions to these papers with actual editorial work.
  102. ↑ The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, p. 162.
  103. ↑ Macvey Napier, Selection from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, Esq., p. 96.
  104. ↑ Ib., p. 126.
  105. ↑ Ib., p. 173.
  106. ↑ Mrs. Ellis H. Chadwick, Mrs. Gaskell Haunts Homes and Stories, pp. 143–144, 184.
  107. ↑ R. C. Lehmann, Charles Dickens as Editor, pp. 51, 65, 70, 99–101, 126, 136, 188, 194, 319.
  108. ↑ Ibid, pp. 29–32.
  109. ↑ William Hazlitt, "A Chapter on Editors," Men and Manners, pp. 307, 309, 304.
  110. ↑ A. I. Dasent, John Thadeus Delane, I, 68.

    "Bob Lowe wrote such an article upon Bright. It made my hair stand on end, and I have had to alter it almost beyond recognition."—Ib., II, 159.

  111. ↑ J. K. Laughton, Memoirs of Henry Reeve, I, 339.—E. T. Cook puts the matter in quite a different light in Delane of "The Times," pp. 192–195, as does A. I. Dasent, John Thadeus Delane, I, 213–223, where the correspondence is given in full.

    H. Brackenbury frequently contributed to the Athenaeum, but when "a new editor, a very young man," altered his proof, he says, "this mechanical editorship was not to my taste,and I ceased contributing to the paper."—Some Memories of My Spare Time, p. 81.

  112. ↑ Leaves from the Life of a Special Correspondent, II, 168–169.
  113. ↑ "The Paris Newspaper Press," Fortnightly Review, August, 1885, n. s., 38: 149–165.
  114. ↑ "Recollections of an Atlantic Editorship," Atlantic Monthly, November, 1907, 100: 594–606.
  115. ↑ My Life's Pilgrimage, p. 161.
  116. ↑ The correspondence on this point between Napier and J. R. M'Culloch is given in Correspondence of Macvey Napier, pp. 73–76.
  117. ↑ Correspondence of Macvey Napier, pp. 82–83, 88–94.
  118. ↑ Correspondence of Macvey Napier, pp. 259–268.
  119. ↑ "American Notes for General Circulation, by Charles Dickens. 2 vols.," Edinburgh Review, January, 1843, 76: 497–522.
  120. ↑ Correspondence of Macvey Napier, p. 417. The letter is dated January 21, 1843.
  121. ↑ H. Brougham, "Newspaper Tax," Edinburgh Review, April, 1835, 61: 181–185.
  122. ↑ Correspondence of Macvey Napier, pp. 165–171, 196–214, 261–265.
  123. ↑ Ib., p. 463.
  124. ↑ See companion articles on the subject: A Contributor, "Editors," and An Editor, "Contributors," in the National Review, June and August, 1896, 27: 505–515, 793–801.
  125. ↑ J. R. Lowell, "The Pious Editor's Creed," Biglow Papers, Number VI.
  126. ↑ New York Evening Post, November 19, 1904.
  127. ↑ Winifred Stephens, Madame Adam.
  128. ↑ Bohemian Days in Fleet Street, p. 298.
  129. ↑ H. S. White, Memorials of Willard Fiske, I, p. xv.
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