This question may be illuminated by another. Would John Bright be a man of equal renown, character, and weight of influence if, being an adherent of peace principles, he had remained in an administration whose policy was war? This question will be thought to beg the whole question. But does it? Must it not be assumed that a man of adequate ability for the proper discussion of political questions must have positive political convictions, and can a man who has such convictions honorably devote himself to discrediting them, and to defeating the policy which they demand, under the plea that he has professionally accepted a retainer or a salary to do so? Would his arguments have any moral weight if they were known to be those of a man who was not himself convinced by them? And is not the concealment of the fact indispensable to the value of his services?

To continue this interrogation: is not the parallel sought to be established between the editorial writer and the lawyer vitiated by the fact that it is universally understood that a lawyer's service is perfunctory and official; that he takes one side rather than another because he is paid for it, and because that is the condition of his profession, and that that condition springs from the nature of legal procedure, society not choosing to take life or to inflict punishment of any kind until the whole case has been stated according to certain stipulated forms? For this reason the advocate who defends a criminal is not supposed necessarily to believe him to be innocent. But no such reason existing in the case of the editor, is it not an equally universal understanding that an editor does honestly and personally hold the view that he presents and defends? For instance, the Times in New York is a Republican and free-trade journal. If it should suddenly appear some morning as a Democratic and protectionist paper, would not the general conclusion be that it had changed hands? But if it should be announced that it was in the same hands, and had changed its views because of a pecuniary arrangement, could the Times continue to have the same standing and influence which it has now?

A distinction may be attempted between the owner of a paper and the editor. But for the public are they not practically the same? It is not, in fact, the owner or the editor, it is the paper, which is known to the public. If the public considers at all the probable relation of the owner and editor, it necessarily assumes their harmony, because it does not suppose that an owner would employ an editor who is injuring the property, and if the paper flourishes under the editor, it is because the owner yields his private opinion to the editor's, if they happen to differ, so that there is no discord. On the other hand, if the paper flags and fails, and the owner, to rescue his property, employs another editor, who holds other views, and changes the tone of the paper, the result is the same so far as the public is concerned. The profit of the paper may increase, but its power and influence surely decline. In the illustration that we have supposed, the proprietorship of the Times might decide that a Democratic and protection paper would have a larger sale and greatly increase the profit. But could the change be made without a terrible blow to the character and influence of the paper? Now why is not an editor in the same position? He has a certain standing, and he holds certain views, like the paper. The paper changes its tone for a price. He does the same thing. The paper loses character and influence. Why does not he?

Journalism is not a profession in the sense claimed. It does not demand a certain course of study, which is finally tested by an examination and certified by a degree. It is a pursuit rather than a profession. Of course special knowledge in particular branches of information is of the highest value, and indeed essential to satisfactory editorial writing, as to all other public exposition. There are also certain details of the collection of news, the organization of correspondence, and the "make up" of the paper, the successful management of which depends upon an energetic executive faculty, which is desirable in every pursuit. It is sometimes said that an editor, like the late Mr. Delane of the London Times, should not write himself, but select the topics and procure the writing upon them by others. And so long as a man is merely an anonymous writer for a paper, so long as he writes to sustain the views of the paper, his actual opinions, being unknown to the reader, do not affect the power of the paper. Such a man, indeed, may write at the same time upon both sides of the same question for different papers. But if he have any convictions or opinions upon the subject, he is with one hand consciously injuring what he believes to be the truth, and a man cannot do that without serious harm to himself. If he have no convictions, his influence will vanish the moment that the fact is known.

Such strictures do not apply to papers which expressly renounce convictions, and blow hot or cold as the chances of probable profit and the apparent tenor of public opinion at the moment invite. Such papers, properly speaking, have no legitimate influence whatever. They produce a certain effect by mere publicity, and reiteration, and ridicule, and distortion and suppression of facts, and appeals to prejudice. There is a legitimate and an illegitimate power of the press. A lion and a skunk both inspire terror.

But a paper which represents convictions, and promotes a public policy in accordance with them, necessarily implies sincerity in its editorial writing. The public assumes that among papers of all opinions the writer attaches himself to one with which he agrees. The nature of the pursuit is such that he cannot make himself a free lance without running the risk of being thought an adventurer, a soldier without patriotism, a citizen without convictions. If the best American press did not represent real convictions, but only the clever ingenuity of paid advocates, it would be worthless as an exponent of public opinion, and could not be the beneficent power that it is.

(October, 1882)

V

One public man in a recent angry altercation with another taunted him with elaborately preparing his invective, and some notoriously vituperative speeches are known to have been written out and printed before they were spoken. Such cold venom is undoubtedly as effective in reading as the hot outbreak of the moment, and it may be even more effective in the delivery, since self-command is as useful to the orator as to the actor. But if a man be guilty of a gross offence who upon a dignified scene violates the self-restraint and respect for the company which are not only becoming, but so much assumed that whoever violates the requirement is felt to insult his associates and the public, why do we not consider whether every scene is not too dignified for mature and intelligent men to attempt to rival in blackguardism the traditional fishwives of Billingsgate?

If an orator or a newspaper conducts a discussion without discharging the fiercest and foulest epithets at the opponent, it is often declared to be tame and feeble and indifferent. But to whom and to what does vituperation appeal? When an advocate upon the platform shouts until he is very hot and very red that the supporter of protection is a thief, a robber, a pampered pet of an atrociously diabolical system, he inflames passion and prejudice, indeed, to the highest fury, and he produces a state of mind which is inaccessible to reason, but he does not show in any degree whatever either that protection is inexpedient or how it is unjust. In the same way, to assail an opponent who favors revision of the tariff and incidental protection as a rascally scoundrel who is trying to ruin American industry—as if he could have any purpose of injuring himself materially and fatally—is absurd. The tirade merely injures the cause which the blackguard intends to help. But the man who carried on discussion in this style is described by other professors of the same art as manly and virile and hitting from the shoulder, and he comes perhaps to think himself a doughty champion of the right.

The weapon that demolishes an antagonist and an argument is not rhetoric, but truth. This accumulation of "bad names" and ingenious combination of scurrility is merely rhetoric. It serves the rhetorical purpose, but it does not convince. It does not show the hearer or reader that one course is more expedient than another, nor give him any reason whatever for any opinion upon the subject. Virility, vigor, masculinity of mind, and essential force in debate are revealed in quite another way. If an American were asked to mention the most powerful speech ever made in the debates of Congress, he would probably mention Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne. It contained the great statement of nationality and the argument for the national interpretation of the Constitution, and it was spoken in the course of a famous controversy. Let any man read it, and ask himself whether it would have gained in power, in effect, in weight, dignity, or character, by personal invective and elaborate vituperation of any kind and any degree whatever.

The truth is that the fury which is supposed to imply force is the conclusive proof of weakness. The familiar advice, "If you have no evidence, abuse the plaintiff's attorney," contains by implication the whole philosophy of what is called the manliness and force of the blackguard. He has no reason, therefore he sneers. He has no argument, therefore he swears. He will get the laugh upon his adversary if he can, forgetting that those who laugh at the clown may also despise him.

Of wit, humor, satire, sarcasm, we are not speaking. The ordinary blackguardism of the political platform and press does not belong to that category. Caricature, however, easily may. There are certain pictures in American caricature which are wit made visible. They are the satire of instructive truth. Indeed, they tell to the eye the indisputable truth as words cannot easily tell it to the ear. In this way caricature is one of the most powerful agents in public discussion. But, like speech or writing, it may be merely blackguard. The incisive wit, the rich humor, the withering satire of speech, gain all their point and effect from the truth. They have no power when they are seen to be false.

So it is with caricature. Nobody can enjoy it more than its subject when it is merely humorous; nobody perceive so surely its pungent touch of truth; nobody disregard more completely its mere malice and falsehood. True wit and humor, whether in controversial letters or art, whether in the newspaper article or the "cartoon," as we now call it, often reveal to the subject in himself what otherwise he might not have suspected. It is very conceivable that an actor, seeing a really clever burlesque of himself, may become aware of tendencies or peculiarities or faults which otherwise he would not have known, and quietly address himself to their correction.

This sanitary service of humor in every form, as well as that of the honest wrath which shakes many a noble sentence of sinewy English as a mighty man-of-war is shaken by her own broadside, is something wholly apart from the billingsgate and blackguardism which are treated as if they were real forces. Publicity itself, as the Easy Chair has often said, has a certain power, and to call a man a rascal to a hundred thousand persons at once produces an undeniable effect. But we must not mistake it for what it is not. Being false, it is not an effect which endures, nor does it vex the equal mind.

It is the fact that the public often seems to demand that kind of titillation, to enjoy fury instead of force, and ridicule instead of reason, which suggests the inquiry whether, if self-restraint and wise discipline are desirable for every faculty of the mind and body, the tongue and hand alone should be allowed to riot in wanton excess. If even the legitimate superlative must be handled, like dynamite, with extreme caution, blackguardism of every degree is a nuisance to be summarily discountenanced and abated by those who know the difference between grandeur and bigness, between Mercutio and Tony Lumpkin, between fair-play and foul.

(September, 1888)

VI

The Easy Chair has been asked whether there is any code of newspaper manners. It has no doubt that there is. But it is the universal code of courtesy, and not one restricted to newspapers. Good manners in civilized society are the same everywhere and in all relations. A newspaper is not a mystery. It is the work of several men and women, and their manners in doing the work are subject to the same principles that govern their manners in society or in any other human relation. If a man is a gentleman, he does not cease to be one because he enters a newspaper office, and it would seem to be equally true that if his work on the paper does not prove to be that of a gentleman, it could not have been a gentleman who did the work.

A gentleman, we will suppose, does not blackguard his neighbors, nor talk incessantly about himself and his achievements, nor behave elsewhere as he would be ashamed to behave in his club or in his own family. If a gentleman does not do these things, of course a gentleman does not do them in a newspaper. And does it not seem to follow, if such things are done in a newspaper, and are traced to a hand supposed to be that of a gentleman, that there has been some mistake about the hand?

Good manners are essentially a disposition which moulds conduct. They can be feigned, indeed, as gilt counterfeits gold, and plate silver. But the clearest glass is not diamond. A man may smile and smile and be a villain. Scoundrels are sometimes described as of gentlemanly manners, and Lothario was not personally a boor. But he was not a gentleman, and he merely affected good manners. A gentleman, indeed, may sometimes lose his temper or his self-control, but no one who habitually does it, and swears and rails vociferously, can be called properly by that name. Here again it is easy to apply the canon to a newspaper. When a newspaper habitually takes an insulting tone, and deliberately falsifies, whether by assertion of an untruth or by a distortion and perversion of the truth, it is not the work of a gentleman, and if the writer be responsible for the tone of the paper, the manners of that newspaper are not good manners.

But there is no uniformity in newspaper manners, as there is none elsewhere. Therefore it cannot be said that newspapers, as a whole, are either well-mannered or unmannerly, as you cannot say that men, as a body, are courteous or uncouth. Some newspapers are unmistakably vulgar, like some people. They are not so of themselves, however; they are made vulgar by vulgar people. There are very able newspapers which have very bad manners, and some which have no other distinction than good manners. A very dull man may be very urbane, and so may a very dull newspaper. On the other hand, a newspaper which is both brilliant and clever may be sometimes guilty of an injustice, a deliberate and persistent misrepresentation, to attain a particular end—conduct which is sometimes called "journalistic." But the person who is responsible for the performance, for similar conduct would be metaphorically kicked out of a club. But gentlemen are not kicked out of clubs.

A newspaper gains neither character nor influence by abandoning good manners. It may indeed make itself disagreeable and annoying, and so silence opposition, as a polecat may effectually close the wood path which you had designed to take. It may be feared, and in the same way as that animal—feared and despised. But this effect must not be confounded with newspaper power and influence. It is exceedingly annoying, undoubtedly, to be placarded all over town as a liar or a donkey, a hypocrite or a sneak-thief. But although the effect is most unpleasant, very little ability is required to produce it. A little paper and printing, a little paste, a great deal of malice, and a host of bill-stickers are all that are needed, and even the pecuniary cost is not large. The effect is produced, but it does not show ability or force or influence upon the part of its producer.

The manners of newspapers, as such, cannot be classified any more than the manners of legislatures, or of the professions or trades. This, however, seems to be true, that a well-mannered man will not produce an ill-mannered newspaper.

(April, 1891)

THE END