it, can bring the available and practised intellect
of his country to bear upon the passions of his countrymen;
for it is a fact, that nearly the whole literary talent
of a nation is at the command of any honorable man
who has money enough, with tact enough. The editor
who expends fifty guineas a day in the purchase of
three short essays can have them written by the men
who can do them best. What a power is this, to
say three things every morning to a whole nation,—to
say them with all the force which genius, knowledge,
and practice united can give,—and to say
them without audible contradiction! Fortunate
for England is it that this power is no longer concentrated
in a single man, and that the mighty influence once
wielded by an individual will henceforth be exerted
by a profession.
We in America have escaped all danger of ever falling
under the dominion of a paper despot. There will
never be a Times in America. Twenty years ago
the New York news and the New York newspaper reached
distant cities at the same moment; but since the introduction
of the telegraph, the news outstrips the newspaper,
and is given to the public by the local press.
It is this fact which forever limits the circulation
and national importance of the New York press.
The New York papers reach a village in Vermont late
in the afternoon,—six, eight, ten hours
after a carrier has distributed the Springfield Republican;
and nine people in ten will be content with the brief
telegrams of the local centre. At Chicago, the
New York paper is forty hours behind the news; at
San Francisco, thirty days; in Oregon, forty.
Before California had been reached by the telegraph,
the New York newspapers, on the arrival of a steamer,
were sought with an avidity of which the most ludicrous
accounts have been given. If the news was important
and the supply of papers inadequate, nothing was more
common than for a lucky newsboy to dispose of his last
sheets at five times their usual price. All this
has changed. A spirited local press has anticipated
the substance of the news, and most people wait tranquilly
for the same local press to spread before them the
particulars when the tardy mail arrives. Even
the weekly and semi-weekly editions issued by the
New York daily press have probably reached their maximum
of importance; since the local daily press also publishes
weekly and semi-weekly papers, many of which are of
high excellence and are always improving, and have
the additional attraction of full local intelligence.
If some bold Yankee should invent a method by which
a bundle of newspapers could be shot from New York
to Chicago in half an hour, it would certainly enhance
the importance of the New York papers, and diminish
that of the rapidly expanding and able press of Chicago.
Such an invention is possible; nay, we think it a
probability. But even in that case, the local
news, and, above all, the local advertising, would
still remain as the basis of a great, lucrative, honorable,
and very attractive business.
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