THE PRESS. ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE OHIO EDITORIAL JULY 11, 1878. MR R. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, I count it a special honor to have been invited to address this association. of editors. But I have been not a little puzzled to know what is expected of me on this occasion, and am still more at a loss. to determine what can be fitly said by a layman, who is wholly ignorant of the art and mystery of your profession. In resolving my doubts, I have taken a hint from an incident of our late war. In one of the battles of the Army of the Cumberland, in Middle Tennessee, one of our brigades was armed with a new and very efficient weapon, - the Spencer rifle, a seven-shooter. At the close of the engagement the troops expressed their great satisfaction with the new arm. Their commander said: "I think it is the best gun in the world; but, after all, I would like to know what those fellows think of it who stood in front of us, and I'll go and ask the prisoners." For the purposes of this address, I shall assume that you have invited me to speak of journalism, as it appears to those who stand in front of your guns. The printing-press is, without doubt, the most powerful weapon with which man has ever armed himself for the fight against ignorance and oppression. But it was not free-born. It was invented at a period when all the functions of government were most widely separated from the people; when secrecy, diplomacy, and intrigue were the chief elements of statesmanship. To such a system publicity was fatal, and from its birth Gutenberg's great invention was taken charge of in all countries by the authorities. It was assumed from the first that nothing should be printed without permission of the Church or State. The censorship of the press was not regarded by governments as an interference with the rights of individuals. It was an act of gracious beneficence to allow any man to print his opinions. In France, and indeed in nearly all the states of the Continent, during the first two centuries after the invention of printing, a private printing-press would have been as unlawful and anomalous as a private mint would be now. At a very early date the censorship of the press became a part of the law of England and of her Colonies. For a long time it was controlled by the Church; but after the conflict of Henry VIII. with the Pope, the law was administered by the civil authorities. The English newspaper was born in London in 1622, a few months after the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth. At that date there was no place on the earth where a printed book or paper could be lawfully published until it had received the imprimatur of the Church or of the sovereign; and, of course, nothing was allowed to be published but what was entirely agreeable to the authorities. In the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press, like the Church, counted its martyrs by thousands. The prison, the pillory, the rack, the gibbet, all find their places in the bloody chapter that records the history of its emancipation. The Anglo-Saxon race have become so accustomed to enjoy liberty of opinion, that they have almost forgotten what it cost to achieve it. They indorse the declaration of Erskine, that "Other liberties are under government; but the liberty of opinion keeps governments themselves under subjection to their duties." But they do not always remember that "this has produced the martyrdom of truth in every age, and that the world has only been purged from ignorance with the blood of those that have enlightened it." During many centuries mankind did not seem to believe that truth was more powerful than falsehood. They did not dare to let her enter the lists in equal combat. Cromwell had a glimpse of the better view when he ordered the release of Harrington's "Oceana," which had been seized as libellous. He said: "Let him take his book. If my government is made to stand, it has nothing to fear from paper shot." Milton saw it in its full glory, when, in his noble but unsuccessful defence of the press, he said: "Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing." 1 The Commonwealth did something for liberty of opinion, but that little was lost at the Restoration. The opinion was almost universal, that to publish any of the proceedings of the government was an act of treason. In 1641, Sir Edward Dering was expelled from the House of Commons, and imprisoned in the Tower, for publishing a speech which he had delivered in Parliament, and all the copies were seized and burned by the common hangman. Before the Revolution of 1688, it was unlawful to publish any reflection upon the government, or upon the character of any one employed by it. In 1729 the Commons resolved that "It is an indignity and a breach of privilege of the House of Commons for any person to presume to give in written or printed newspapers any account or minutes of the debates or other proceedings of this House, or any committee thereof." In 1764, Mores, the editor of the Evening Post, was fined £100 by the House of Lords for mentioning the name of Lord Hereford in his paper. In 1771, after a long and fierce struggle, which brought England almost to a bloody revolution, custom tolerated, though the law did not authorize, the publication of the debates in Parliament. But criticism of the government was still forbidden. As late as 1792 Sampson Perry, the editor of the Argus, was tried and convicted of libel for saying in his paper that "the House of Commons were not the real representatives of the people." We are accustomed to say that liberty was brought to America on board the Mayflower. But it was only after a long struggle that the germ was planted. In view of the European examples, it is remarkable that the persecution of free opinion in New England was not fiercer, and of longer duration. It required a century for the doctrines of the illustrious exile of Rhode Island to take firm root in our soil. It was two hundred years after the discovery of the continent, and seventy years after the landing of the Pilgrims, that the first newspaper was published in America, and that paper, entitled "Publick Occur1 Milton's Areopagitica, Prose Works, Vol. I. p. 189 (Philadelphia, 1856). rences," published in Boston in 1690, lived but one day. It was suppressed by the Colonial authorities. I have referred to Roger Williams as the founder of liberty of opinion in America. It has long been a matter of surprise to me that journalists have not taken more notice of him as our earliest apostle of the freedom of the press. Until his time toleration was the strongest expression that liberty had found. But Williams denounced toleration as a baleful word; for it implied the right of a government to refuse to tolerate dissenting opinions. Exiled into the wilderness of Rhode Island by the religious zealots of Massachusetts, in 1636 he announced the doctrine of "soul liberty," the right to utter his own convictions, - as the inalienable right of every freeman. But Williams had lain a century in his grave before his great thought was crystallized into the enduring form of constitutional law. But little attention has been directed to a feature of our national Constitution which seems to me by far its most important provision. Our fathers sought so to distribute the functions of government that absolute power should be lodged nowhere. They divided all authority into three great groups. Certain definitely prescribed powers were delegated to the national government, certain others to the State governments; but the most important, the most sacred rights, were strictly forbidden to be exercised either by the national government or by the States. They were reserved to the people themselves. In every government that then existed, religion was the chief object of the state. Indeed, the Old World theory was that the state was organized for the defence and maintenance of religion. But our fathers considered the rights of conscience, the freedom of thought, too sacred to be delegated; hence, they provided that the care of religion, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of the press, should never depend upon legislation, but should be left to the voluntary action of the people themselves. With a sublime faith in the omnipotence of truth, they left her freehanded, to fight her own way against all comers. Under the inspiration of this perfect liberty, the American press has been working out its destiny, developing its strength, its virtues, and its evils. If we were now to establish a new constitution, no thoughtful citizen would wish the press less free. If it has sometimes been weak, venal, and vicious under the reign of liberty, it would be more so under the trammels of authority. Just now, Republican France is seeking to enfranchise her press. A committee of her legislature has recently made a report which ought to be published by every Anglo-Saxon journal. The report shows that there were six thousand prosecutions of publishers during the reign of the second Napoleon. It exhibits a long list of proscribed books, at the head of which stands a noble volume by a distinguished American. Then follow the works of Macaulay, Lamartine, Guizot, Cousin, Victor Hugo, George Sand, and indeed of all the foremost writers of the world. I give a single specimen of the official record of the Commission of Censure, out of hundreds equally striking: "Essay upon the Reform of Legal Formalities regarding Mortgages.' The examiner pronounces a favorable opinion of this work, but it contains new theories not in accordance with the established order of things. Its circulation is not permitted." Without a free press "the established order of things" can nowhere be improved. Government control has always made the press servile. I know of no better illustration than a few brief extracts from the French Moniteur. When Napoleon I. escaped from Elba in 1815, the Moniteur, then the organ of Louis XVIII., thus chronicled the progress of the returning exile from day to day: "The Anthropophagist has escaped." "The Corsican ogre has landed." "The Tiger is coming." "The Monster has slept at Grenoble." "The Tyrant has arrived at Lyons." "The Usurper has been seen in the environs of Paris." "Bonaparte advances toward, but will never reach the capital." "Napoleon will be under our ramparts tomorrow." "His Imperial Majesty entered the Tuileries on the 21st of March, in the midst of his faithful subjects." Not for its own sake alone, but for the sake of society and good government, the press should be free. Publicity is the strong bond which unites the people and their government. Authority should do no act that will not bear the light. But freedom brings with it increased responsibility, and I turn from this imperfect historical sketch to inquire what the community demands of the press. I may not express the opinion of the majority, but certainly it is my own, that the first and greatest demand which the public makes of its editors is that they shall obtain and publish the news, that they shall print a veritable and intelligible |