unexciting news and well-considered discussion of matters of current interest. There have also arisen a number of party or individual organs, like Bryan's Commoner, La Follette's, and Harvey's Weekly, which seek to preserve the personality and individuality now almost wholly gone from the daily press.

Enterprises in social service have become an established activity of the newspapers. From lending aid to police officials in investigating crime and detecting criminals, reporters have proceeded on behalf of their papers and the public to many notable exploits of this kind. These have been in large measure, like Stanley's search for Livingstone, undertaken to create sensational news. Related to this conception of the uses of a newspaper go the departments of personal aid, giving advice in matters of health, courtship, manners, law, greatly helpful, though sometimes reminiscent of the Athenian Mercury. More ambitious have been such undertakings as the long-continued campaign carried on by the Chicago Tribune for a "sane Fourth" and the Good Fellow movement at Christmas time, the series of free lectures and other educational endeavours of the Chicago Daily News, the municipal projects of the Kansas City Star, the fresh air funds, ice funds, pure milk funds, and other philanthropic projects supported by many papers. These had become an established function of American newspapers long before the calamities of Europe made of them the wonderful collectors of charitable gifts they have been throughout and since the war. The newspapers have made efforts to prevent swindling by excluding questionable advertising and exposing frauds. Some have gone so far as to guarantee their advertisements. Others have established "bureaus of accuracy and fair play" and made systematic plans to publish corrections of their mistakes.

While the newspapers have been finding new ways in which to serve the public, the public through state and Federal laws has been manifesting a similar interest. In 1900 the Associated Press gave up its charter in Illinois and secured a new one in New York because the Illinois Supreme Court held that it had "devoted its property to a public use . . . in effect, granted to the public such an interest in its use that it must submit to be controlled by the public, for the common good, to the extent of the interest it has thus created in the public in its private

property." In somewhat this spirit, laws have been enacted within the present century requiring the publication of ownership and circulation of newspapers, stipulating that all advertisements shall be labelled, and in various states curtailing the right of papers to emphasize the evil exposed in divorce and other trials.

These manifestations of a desire to make the newspapers as clean and useful as possible are in part a development of, in part a reaction from, the era of sensationalism. The excesses of that era, together with the growing wealth of the larger papers, and a clarifying realization of the vital need for honest newspapers with more than a commercial purpose, are beginning to show secondary consequences.

The principal journalistic result of the World War was the elimination of the war correspondent, in the character displayed in previous wars. Scores of correspondents went to Europe, and the burden of expense laid upon the newspapers by the enormous conflict and the excessive cable tolls was unprecedented. But the correspondents were rigorously restricted in their movements and their reports censored so thoroughly that, although a vast quantity of matter was transmitted, for the first time the news of a great war was under practically complete governmental control. In addition to being subject to the trans-Atlantic official censorship of European news, our newspapers united in a voluntary censorship of domestic news, suggested by the Committee on Public Information. Restrictions were laid on the press by the Espionage and other laws which led to considerable suppression, principally through denial of mailing privileges, and brought up for consideration the perennial question of the freedom of the press.

The great advance during and since the World War accelerated an already considerable decrease in the number of weeklies and smaller dailies and led to the disappearance of many larger papers, including some of the oldest and best known in the country. War-time conditions served also to diminish greatly the number of papers printed in the German language, and brought sharply to public notice the great number and influence of the foreign-language papers.

American newspapers surpass in number the papers of all other countries; they have steadily for many decades led in the

development of energy and resourcefulness in collecting and dispensing news, as well as in adroitness in perceiving and satisfying popular tastes and demands for information and entertainment. Unsettled as are now the foundations on which the institution of journalism lies, its desire and ability to serve what it considers the best public interests are on the whole remarkable. The extravagances of sensationalism are passing out of fashion; newspaper style, despite the argot of sports and the extravagances due to overzealous pursuit of brightness and catchiness of phrase, is gaining in effectiveness and finish; barring the spectacular sheets, no other newspapers in the world show such typographical beauty. Within the present century men with college education have rapidly replaced the earlier type of journalist, and multiplying schools of journalism are making a profession of the trade.

THE

CHAPTER XXI

Political Writing Since 1850

It

HE year 1850 was a landmark in American political history. In September the Great Compromise was enacted. tempered the slavery controversy and checked impending secession. To abide by the measure or to reject it was the issue in state campaigns, especially in the cotton states, during 1851. There, and also in the North and the West, the Whigs worked intensely for popular support of the compromise. In fact, they seem to have spent their strength in the cause, and when the country accepted "the finality of the compromise" they were unable to raise a new issue, and their organization rapidly went to pieces after 1852. In the meantime a change was taking place in the personnel of political leadership. Calhoun' died before the compromise bill became a law, Clay' and Webster3 in 1852. A number of men of less distinction but of invaluable service retired from politics about the same time: Van Buren in 1848, likewise Benton, Winthrop of Massachusetts, Ewing of Ohio, Foote of Mississippi, and Berrien of Georgia in 1851. With the death or retirement of these men the sentiment for union which they had fostered, declined. Among those who took their places partizanship was supreme, and until the advent of Lincoln originality and sincerity were almost totally lacking. It is not surprising, therefore, that for two decades after 1850 political thought and discussion centred around inherited issues relating to sectionalism and nationality.

In the South the philosophy and defence of slavery and of a society based on inequalities among its members became the dominating theme. The discussion had begun a generation earlier with the memorable debates in the Virginia Legislature 1 See Book II, Chap. xv. 2 Ibid. 3 See Book II, Chap. XVI.

of 1831. To a committee was referred a number of petitions and memorials requesting emancipation or colonization of slaves and the removal of free negroes from the state. These furnished the cue for one of the really notable books in the history of American political thought, Thomas R. Dew's Review of the Debates in the Virginia Legislature (1833). The author, after graduation from William and Mary at the early age of twenty, travelled and studied in Europe; then in 1827 became Professor of History, Metaphysics, Natural and National Law, Government and Political Science at his Alma Mater, and in 1836 was made president of the institution. His writing and teaching marked the beginning of the transition in the South from the political philosophy of the Revolution and the early nineteenth century, of which Jefferson was the ablest exponent, to that which dominated that section in the fifties. He argued against emancipation or colonization. His reasons were based on history, religion, and economics. Slavery was a characteristic of classical civilization; it was approved by the Scriptures; and in America the slave-holding states produced most of the country's wealth-in fact, in Virginia the sale of surplus slaves equalled each year the value of the tobacco crop. Moreover, emancipation and deportation were impractical and the condition of the negro slave in the South was far better than that of the native African. Professor Dew publicly stated what many were privately thinking. His book therefore had a wide circulation and was reprinted in 1852 by William Gilmore Simms in his collection entitled Pro-Slavery Argument.

Dew's defence of slavery was based on things practical; others sought to justify it through political and social philosophy. Consequently the theories of social contract, equality, and inalienable rights, immortalized by Jefferson, were subjected to rigorous criticism. One of the pioneers in this task was Chancellor Harper of South Carolina. His Memoir on Slavery, published in 1838, was likewise reprinted in Simms's collection. In contrast to the dictum of Jefferson that "all men are created free and equal" Harper declared that "man is born to subjection-as he is born to sin and ignorance." The proclivity of the natural man is to dominate or to be subservient, not to make social compacts. Civil liberty is therefore an artificial

See Book II, Chap. VII.