Newspapers — Their Mission and Importance.
New York (Daily) Times, February 28th, 1852
Newspapers are becoming more and more the medium of intellectual culture — the avenues for recorded thought. What will not be found in their crowded columns? History, speeches, political, forensic and theological, geography, maps, discoveries, anecdotes, biography, statistics, all the sciences, the doings of all nations and the wants of all men, commercial interests, adventures and prospects, and all the events and thoughts that illustrate the age, are here arranged under their appropriate heads, and stamped on the ephemeral, yet it may be, immortal page. Each paper is a volume — each issue a library. Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the time, marking its progress, its energy, and shadowing forth its future, than the intellectual wealth which is poured into the public mind, through the channel of the daily and weekly press.
If wealth be measured by the true standard of how much labor it will command, then is every man in this country rich; for, in the single newspaper, how much labor can his penny buy? More than the most opulent could have afforded at a former day. Important events are transpiring in Russia, Austria, Turkey, France, England, on the La Plata and San Joaquim — indeed, over all the world, which countless men, at the places of their occurrence, are labouring to ascertain with particularity, arrange and record. They come to this local point through various sources; by railroad, by stage, steamships, sails and lightning, till they reach the sanctum of the Editor. A thousand rills are pouring into the general stream. At home, a hundred men are diligently at work, through night and day, gathering knowledge and collating it for use. The mills are turning out their spotless reams; and, when all is ready, the massive engine, as if inspired by the living genius of the age, speeds its myriad copies through the world. This is one day’s work. One cent represents it all. It were a curious history to trace the art of communicating knowledge, from the ancient manuscript duplicated only by the pen through tedious hours, to the ponderous printed tome, and thence, through various degrees, to the nimble paper of the present day. Thousands peruse the daily issues, and are thus acquainted with the current events of the globe, who would rarely open the lids of a book. Dust is allowed to gather on the huge volume. Men prefer the newspaper, easily taken up and easily laid down, ever at hand, ever fresh, and containing all that is known ; for into its columns is pressed the essence of books, and much that books do not contain. They are the world’s ledgers, and post their readers up each day. Men do not feel prepared to plunge into the tide of business till they have seen what has taken place during the previous day and night in their city and country, and what the last steamer has brought from California, England, or the Continent. Instances of valor, great and good deeds, new ideas, are collected from different countries, and reach the general mind. When roguery shows its head, it is branded, and the people warned. If an earthquake rumbles, if a star is discovered, a ship launched or lost, a mine uncovered, a murder perpetrated, a battle fought, a monarch dethroned, a lighthouse erected, a railway opened, or an election concluded, the mails are immediately freighted with the intelligence, and the tables of reading-rooms groan under its weight. Do men reflect how many fervent brains are necessary to forge a daily paper look at one or two instances: An ardent scholar pursues his studies through years of assiduous toil. He pours out his ripened thought and rich experience into the compact and well-ordered lecture. His best and richest suggestions are here condensed. He reads them to a few hundred admiring people, and, ere the words have left his mouth, the press catches the substance of his effort, and wind and tide and steam are carrying it to the earth’s ends. Thus, when Silli-man opens the valves of his philosophy, Anti-sell unravels the earth’s history of itself, Mit-chell soars amidst the stars, Kane tells us of the “pulse of the ice” beyond the “recorded frontier,” or Emerson, from his quiet home on the Concord, reveals to us the depths of our own souls, the press seizes the revelations, and spreads them under the eye of the world. So, Webster, the colossus of the New World, addresses an audience, and the next morning his majestic sentences inform the gladdened page. So, Kossuth, the lofty intellect of the Old World, summons the spirit of liberty to the aid of the oppressed, and, without delay, his burning words and glorious thoughts traverse the nations. Then, the deliberations of Legislatures, State and Federal, the lucubrations of distant correspondents, the letters of travelers, the speculations of laborious Editors, the experience of far-sighted men of trade and commerce, the legal essays of the Bench, the debates of conventions, the statistical compilations, and a vast variety of miscellaneous intelligence, throng the laden columns. But the advertising compartment shows, perhaps, most faithfully, the “ very age and body of the time, his form and pressure.” Here, new inventions clamor for attention; the individual wants of a whole community demand gratification. What every man has to sell, what every man wants to buy, when steamers start, and locomotives tramp, what sights are to be seen, plays enacted, books published, goods imported, dividends declared, diseases cured, partnerships formed and dissolved, estates settled, vessels telegraphed, desires supplied, and a host of notices refusing to be classified, contribute to make the columns of advertisements a daguerreotype of the social life of the people. We have referred to this subject, for the present seems to call, more than any former period, upon the capabilities of the newspaper. Its influence, its sphere, the circle of its duties, topic and responsibilities are constantly increasing. To what pitch of labor and perfection, a few years more may bring this mighty instrumentality, one may strive in vain to conjecture.
