Ohio History Journal

NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY*

 

By RAYMOND F. FLETCHER

 

Time's out of joint when a newspaper man ventures to

speak at an annual gathering of a great state historical society.

Whenever a member of the Fourth Estate appraises history,

he must agree with the sages that it is at the root of all science,

the first distinct product of man's spiritual nature, the unrolled

scroll of prophecy, the record of man in quest of complete

living.

What possible connection can there be between proud his-

tory and the common newspaper? Ever since our grandfather's

day, newspapers have been thrown away or burned and it has

been an axiom that nothing is quite so worthless as a day-old

newspaper. What a newspaper man writes may be in demand

for 24 short hours, but he has repeatedly been told that he is

writing on the sands.  The next day his newspaper, with all

his eloquent stories, is useful for nothing but shelf paper, gar-

bage wrapping or, more recently, may be in exalted state because

it has been bundled up and turned to a profit by Boy Scouts in

a waste-paper drive.  In no case, however, was the written

content of the sheet of paper considered of any permanent

value.

The weary G. I. slogging through the mud of Italy did

not know that he was quoting Walpole when he grumbled, "It

is lots more fun to read history than to make it."

Not all the comments about historians or newspaper men

are complimentary.  Somebody has said that on the first page

of each history book should be copied the phrase from the intro-

duction to every movie, "Any relation to real characters living

or dead is purely coincidental." Matthew Arnold called history

a vast Mississippi of falsehood and Washington Irving said in

his Sketch Book, "History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded

with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the

tablet: the statue falls from  the pedestal.  Columns, arches,

 

* Delivered at the afternoon session of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society, Friday, April 12, 1946.

212

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY                  213

 

pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand ; and their epitaphs,

but characters written in the dust?"

Thomas Jefferson said that an editor might divide his paper

into four chapters--truths, probabilities, possibilities and lies.

Oscar Wilde said that in the old days men had the rack, now

they have the press.

Most of the adverse criticism arises from the fact that the

reader has discovered that in both history and the newspaper

he is so completely at the mercy of the writer of the story. At

best the news commentator arid the historian tell what each has

seen through his own pair of spectacles, and what each has

omitted may have been just as important as the tale which was

told.

Perhaps, just because misery loves company, some histo-

rians at long last are suggesting that a newspaper is one of the

most important and fertile sources of material of: historical

value. There is properly no history, only biography, and where

could one find a more complete biography of the people who

live in a given community for a single day, year or decade

than in the local newspaper. Many historians would agree in

saying that the newspaper records history in its almost pure

form.

Today the newspaper libraries are the proudest possessions

of state historical societies. Although the collection of the Ohio

State Archaeological and Historical Society is but twenty years

old, it is unique among state newspaper libraries in the entire

country, ranking fourth in size and being the largest collection

of Ohio papers. It is the aim of the Ohio Society to tell the

story of Ohio, and a continued effort is being made to build up

its collection of newspapers.

The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society has

also prepared what is perhaps one of the most valuable tools

to the user of newspaper files--the union list--a guide to the

location of all known Ohio newspapers.

Until the present, the only list available was a union list

showing the newspaper holdings in each of the 48 states. It

was believed that many files had been overlooked, others un-

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known and that this need could only be answered by a union

list of Ohio newspapers.

Over a year ago, Arthur D. Mink, acting head of the News-

paper Department, began work on a union list at the suggestion

of Dr. Harlow Lindley, editor and librarian of the Ohio Society.

The list was to give accurate data concerning all Ohio. news-

papers preserved in Ohio libraries in addition to the holdings of

the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. The list

was to include the files of the Ohio State Library, the public

libraries of the State, the libraries of historical societies, religious

organizations and two private collections.

Robert C. Wheeler, head of the Newspaper Division, says:

"Representing the holdings of 162 Ohio libraries, this union

list includes the entire Ohio newspaper resources within the

State. Many small libraries are listed for the first time and the

holdings of the large libraries are brought up to date.  The

second largest newspaper library in Ohio, that of the Western

Reserve Historical Society, collated its entire collection for in-

clusion in this list. Since this union list includes Ohio news-

papers from the earliest in 1793, to date, it combines the accurate

data in the Ohio sections of Clarence S. Brigham's Bibliography

of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester, Mass., 1914),

and Winifred Gregory's American Newspapers, 1821-1936, a

Union List of Files Available in the United States and Canada.

(New York, 1937).

"All this Mr. Mink has done with painstaking care and

accuracy in his Union List of Ohio Newspapers Available in

Ohio."

The Newspaper Library is used for research and reference

by all classes of people, but particularly by research historians,

genealogists, newspaper men, feature writers, lawyers, economists.

university professors and students. The value of the Library

in affording first hand information as to the history of Ohio,

both as a territory and as a State, cannot be overestimated.

The Newspaper Library owns some treasures. The Library

is fortunate in possessing the only original issue in existence of

the first newspaper to be published in what is now Ohio. That

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY                  215

 

is the Centinel of the North-Western Territory, published No-

vember 9, 1793, by William Maxwell. It is about one-fourth

the size of the average newspaper today, having but four pages

of three columns each. Its motto was "Open to all parties--but

influenced by none." The oldest newspaper in the Library is

the Observator, published in London, England, March 19, 1683.

The oldest American paper which the Library possesses is the

Boston News-Letter, published April 24, 1704. Another Library

paper carries the account of the Boston Massacre. Many of the

newspaper files are complete from the first issue of the paper.

One of the largest complete files is that of the Ohio State Journal

which was founded in 1811 at Worthington, Ohio, as the

Western Intelligencer.

In addition to the many early Ohio papers is a collection

of campaign papers which is nearly complete. The majority of

these were published between the years 1840 and 1860.

During 1939, seven Ohio newspapers, selected from various

parts of the State, were completely microfilmed from the earliest

issue up to date. This gave the Society over 3,000 rolls of film

on which there are several millions of microscopic pictures, each

the page of a newspaper. In this way only can we hope to save

this treasure of knowledge for future generations. The News-

paper Department of the Ohio State Archaeological and His-

torical Society is now making plans for extensive use of micro-

film in order to preserve its valuable collection of Ohio news-

papers.

What is the Newspaper Library of the Society doing about

the history being made today? Tomorrow there will be sixty-

six daily Ohio papers received at the Library, and at the week's

end eighty-eight weekly papers arrive. These will be wrapped

or bound and will provide the historian of tomorrow with an

insight into "our times."

But if a newspaper is to be preserved as a source of history,

what of the history of the newspaper itself ? Probably the first

real newspaper appeared in Europe just in time to record on its

single small sheet the story of the discovery of America, and

whatever room was left at the bottom was filled with a bit of

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rumor or gossip. Then came the polemics of the pamphlet and

in the 18th century for the first time this pamphlet was combined

with the news sheet, and later in the century a regular market

report was added.

Of course, it is argued that the Acta Diurna of ancient

Rome was a real newspaper. This journal did record the story

of Imperial Rome for the benefit of the troops in the distant

corners of the Roman Empire. Likewise the old Pekin Gazette

in China for centuries served the same purpose, but the circu-

lation of both was limited to certain groups. These publications

were, in reality, class papers and it has been said that Rome

fell because there was no newspaper of general circulation to

keep all the home folks informed about the state of the nation.

In England, in 1605, Nathaniel Butter began a series of

pamphlets. The repeal of the licensing act in 1695 gave rise

to many British newspapers but the immediate imposition of a

four penny stamp tax on a seven penny newspaper speedily put

many of them out of business. Most London newspapers of the

period were filled with nothing but city rumor, gossip and abuse.

In the nineteenth century great newspapers were developed in

England to march hand in hand with the developing empire.

Reuters, the British press service, was a great colonizing tool.

Without these newspapers the British empire could not have

been held together at all. Elsewhere in France, Germany and

Italy a newspaper was merely the child of the state and real

freedom of expression was unknown.

It remained for America to develop the best real newspapers

which lived up to the definition: "A report of recent events,

information about something before unknown, fresh tidings,

recent intelligence; a paper printed and distributed at stated

intervals to convey news, advocate opinions, publish advertise-

ments and other matters of public interest."

In Boston in 1690 Publick Occurrences appeared with one

page left blank for reflections of a very high nature. It was

suppressed after a single issue because it dared to express opin-

ions. On May 8, 1704, the first advertisement appeared in the

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY                 217

 

third issue of the Boston News-Letter. This paper was published

by authority and was thoroughly censored.

The first daily newspaper was the Pennsylvania Packet and

Daily Advertiser, Philadelphia, 1784. It was virtually forced in-

to being by the pressure of advertising. This issue had four

pages, and 10 of the 16 columns were filled with advertisements.

Ship sailings, rewards for stolen goods, auction sales, Bibles and

real estate were represented.

The Packet had started off as a weekly paper in 1771^. Print-

ing conditions at that time made papers of more than 4 pages

impractical; so, when advertising took up an increasing amount

of the available space, Publisher John Dunlap met the situation

by making his paper a semi-weekly, later a tri-weekly--and

finally, on September 21, 1784, a daily.

Benjamin Franklin founded the Philadelphia Gazette in

1728. It was famous for typography and wood-cut illustrations

in advertising columns. Another great printer of that time was

John Peter Zenger, editor of the New York Weekly Journal,

and early champion of the freedom of the press. The advance

of typography was halted in 1760 by an acute paper shortage,

paper being made by hand from cotton rags. Advertising had

to be set in solid agate type.

In 1820 the perfection of the Fourdrinier Paper Making

Machine made possible an endless sheet of newsprint, manufac-

tured from  spruce chips. The opening of the Erie Canal in

1825 offered a better distribution of merchandise and more ad-

vertising. In 1833 the advent of the "penny press" stressed

local news, but was far too often narrow and vindictive in the

treatment of personalities.  In 1847-1854 newspapers jumped

from 2,000 to 4,000 although the population increase was only

25%.

In New York in the 1860's these great editors made news-

papers: Charles Dana of the New York Sun, James Gordon

Bennett of the Herald, Horace Greeley of the Tribune and Henry

James Raymond of the Times. These men were positive and

partisan in their views and the people purchased the newspaper

of their favorite editor.

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The Civil War pushed advertising off the first page (except

in New England) and developed for the first time the reporter

who went to the actual battle to cover the story. Just after the

Civil War, when the tide of civilization moved westward, the

local newspaper began for the first time to record the intimate

story of its own community. It chronicled the story of the pass-

ing tide of migration, and really became the custodian of history

for its own area. The invention of the telegraph gave the news-

paper access to the news outside of its own community.

In the reconstruction period, rotary presses and stereotype

plates shot the circulations far beyond what had ever been

dreamed. Ready-made suits and patent medicines were intro-

duced to America by the newspapers. In 1870 newspapers told

about Remington Typewriters, Castoria, Royal Baking Powder

and Sapolio. In 1890 it was package cereals. At the turn of

the century newspapers were using typesetting machines and

bigger, faster presses. By 1918 they had made it possible for

Americans to have low priced automobiles, gasoline, cigarettes,

oranges, soaps and chewing gum.

At the same time, there was a transition period from the

personal age in which the editor was the newspaper to the modern

era in which he merely is the head of an important part of a

large organization.  Newspapers have not yet fully convinced

the skeptical public that the new type of editor who effaces him-

self still can produce a dependable newspaper.

Of course, the public is ever resentful of the power of an

editor's headline, his scissors and his personal judgment as to

relative news values. Yet, would not the severest critic admit

that the majority of present newspaper editors and reporters are

proving themselves to be honest and forthright in their efforts

to report news factually, as they see it? Do they not produce

honest newspapers? Individuals may charge that the editor is

at the mercy of the advertiser, but a study of the average town

would bring conviction that the chief complaint of advertisers is

that they are entirely unable to get any personal advantage from

the newspaper, even though they might think their advertising

support should entitle them to special consideration.

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY                 21₉

 

The position of the editor is made more difficult by the fact

that almost every partisan leader, down in his heart, wants to

be censor of the press, to get his own side of the story featured

in the news and to suppress the expression of the opposition.

To the Associated Press must be given credit for the develop-

ment of a fine moral concept that news must be unbiased and

truthful.  In  the nineteenth  century, partisan  newspapers

throughout the land distrusted the news of each other. When

they united in the cooperative Associated Press, the members,

with differing opinions, found they could agree upon but one

thing--that the Associated Press, which they established, should

send nothing but truthful, unbiased news.

Each member of this Associated Press was pledged to turn

over all his own local news to the general body. Many news-

papers joined, others did not. The upshot was that there devel-

oped in America three great agencies for worldwide gathering

of news. Of these, the Associated Press is a non-profit organ-

ization, and the United Press and International News Service are

profitable business enterprises.

Ohio, mother of the Presidents, has equal claim to fame in

the vast succession of men who have gained national prominence

as journalists or who have gone on to other positions of distinc-

tion, even to the presidency of the United States. Murat Hal-

stead, proprietor of the Cincinnati Commercial, established him-

self in literature as a great biographer. Col. Donn Piatt became

a diplomat. Whitelaw Reid became owner of the New York

Tribune and ambassador to France and England. Henry Ward

Beecher went from Ohio journalism to the ministry. Isaac Kauf-

man Funk chose to publish books with his firm of Funk and

Wagnalls. Ambrose Bierce was called America's greatest critic.

William Dean Howells, one of America's greatest authors, was

for years a reporter on the Ohio State Journal. Two Presidents,

William Howard Taft and Warren G. Harding, got their start

as journalists. Januarius Aloysius MacGahan, the first of Ohio's

great war correspondents, was the liberator of Bulgaria. Burton

Egbert Stevenson, "Petroleum V. Nasby", Kin Hubbard, New-

ton Newkirk, and Ted Robinson made their newspaper columns

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220   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

household words throughout the nation. Carl Van Anda molded

national opinion as editor of the New York Times. In the present

generation Paul Bellamy, editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer;

John Knight, group publisher of Akron; Roy D. Moore, general

manager of Brush-Moore Newspapers and head of the ANPA

Bureau of Advertising; and Grove Patterson, editor of the Toledo

Blade, are top flight men in national journalism.

News is the basis of the modern newspaper but it cannot

live by news alone. It must also amuse and serve. Unless a

newspaper is conducted for profit, it is not a unit in itself but

part of something else. A newspaper cannot be independent

unless it earns its living.

Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune has worked

out an ideal definition of a newspaper: "The newspaper is an

institution developed by modern civilization to present the news

of the day, to foster commerce and industry through widely

circulated advertisements and to furnish that check upon govern-

ment which no constitution has ever been able to provide."

Thanks to the constitutional amendment of the Founding

Fathers, the newspaper which the American citizen buys each

day is a free newspaper. Nearly everywhere else in the world

the Fourth Estate is in chains. Henry F. Pringle, newspaper-

man and historian, said in a freedom of the press broadcast over

the Columbia Broadcasting System: "The lamps of freedom have

gone out, one by one, and men walk in ignorance and terror.

But here we are still free because the truth is available to us, in

the printed columns of the daily papers and on the air. A free

press is a truthful press. It is a press deeply conscious of its

own responsibility, wholly aware that freedom does not include

license.  A  free press blackens no innocent man's name.  It

fights for the lowly and the oppressed. It exposes evil. It cru-

sades for the right. It bows to but one master, the truth, and

it serves that master at all costs. We are ready, most of us, to

die for that freedom. But this is not enough. We must guard

it, cherish it, and work for it--as living Americans."

The greatest news story of 1946 would be the announcement

that lasting world peace was assured. At the end of the second

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY               221

 

World War the great nations met at San Francisco, determined

that armed conflict must not happen again. Their peace formula

called for an effective United Nations Organization and a

Security Council. If, in the effort to establish this lasting world

peace, it became necessary to choose between the United Nations

(Organization and the establishment of a world flow of unham-

pered communications, the best choice for peace would be the

latter.

History has discovered one great truth: "Man is in a proud

and pitiless struggle for freedom. The core of freedom con-

cerns the spirit of man." The peace of the world depends upon

human understanding, and human understanding depends on the

free flow of communications made up of movies, radio and the

printed word.

War-torn Europe is being invited to go the easy way of any

government--that is control over press, radio and movies. Regi-

mentation of thought satisfies the dictator and relieves the hungry

masses from any need of any decisions. But until ideas can

roam the world without restraint there is slight chance for a

peace in what Wendell Willkie called "One World."

In the trenches of the first World War an American faced

an unknown German. Both soldiers had fixed bayonets. On

the beachheads of the second World War his son faced the son

of this German, also an unknown, and again both boys had fixed

bayonets. The first American was firm in his conviction that

his German opponent was a fiend incarnate. The German had

a similar opinion of his enemy.

Nothing had happened in the interval between wars to

change American opinion of Germans, or German opinion of

Americans.  Because the Nazi government had propagandized

its news and America was complacent, a second war was inevit-

able. Substitute Russia for Germany and exactly the same

danger exists today. Unless this condition is changed a third

war will follow the second as surely as night follows day.

While Americans knew much about what was going on in

Germany before the second World War, the German people.

themselves, were not privileged to know the whole truth in

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Germany or the rest of the world. This was the sort of control

that propaganda exercised through suppression of freedom of

news.

Before Sept. 1, 1939, foreign correspondents had free hand

in transmitting news from Germany, but the Nazi government

was so clever about planting false ideas in the minds of some

representative Americans that the people in the United States

often were unable to detect which story was truth. The American

people peacefully ignored the correct signs. They did not want

to be disturbed; it was so much more pleasant not to be. Ameri-

can officialdom, knowing all that was needed to be known, played

the meanest trick of all by failure to act on the information

available; by failure to waken a nation in time--blind, comfort-

able, political officialdom, fearing to arouse citizens out of paci-

ficism into preparedness because it might be "unpopular."

Through censorship, deliberate distortion of news for pur-

pose of propaganda, and the muzzling of press and radio, whole

peoples may be manipulated like puppets. It was no accident

that the first thing to fall in Germany was the great newspaper

publishing house of Ullstein, which was bought by Hitler, at

forced sale, 20?? on the dollar. It is no accident that Russia's

"Wall of Silence" is built squarely on government manipulation

of all communications in and out of the Russian area of control.

The special Commission on Freedom of the Press concludes

that it is high time the problem of the world flow of information

be solved. It decides that the surest antidote for ignorance and

deceit is the widest possible exchange of true information, not

merely more information. It is a problem of bringing the physical

facilities for transmitting words and images across national

boundaries within the reach of all and removing the barriers at

the boundaries. It is also the problem of achieving a degree of

quality and accuracy to give a fair picture of the life of each

country to all the world. This would mean that reporters must

have a right to go to the sources of news and then be able to

transmit their dispatches without garbled censorship. It means

that transmission systems must be permitted to operate on a

worldwide basis.  It requires the creation of an autonomous

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY                 223

 

unit in the United Nations Economic and Social Council, to pro-

mote the free flow of true information and the removal of the

artificial government barriers.  Such is the imperative recom-

mendation made by Llewellyn White and Robert D. Leigh. They

call for action before it is too late.

John S. Knight, wartime president of the American Society

of Newspaper Editors, fears that the Leigh-White report means

a code of discipline of newsmen and, therefore, is a step in the

direction of government control of the news. He says the com-

mission suggests "an ominous development which threatens the

liberties of individual reporters and correspondents."

Morris L. Ernst in his new book, The First Freedom, thinks

that before we accept the report of this commission we must first

put our own American house in order. "Government," he says,

"is not the sole enemy, and concentrated economic power also

acts as a restraint of thought. We in the United States have

forsaken free enterprise in the fields of communication. Com-

petition is at a minimum.

"Our press is fast evaporating," he thinks. "Ten states have

not a single city with competing daily papers. Twenty-two states

are without Sunday newspaper competition.    Fourteen com-

panies, owning eighteen papers, control about one-quarter of our

total daily circulation. Three hundred and seventy chain news-

papers own about one fifth of all our circulation. More than a

quarter of our daily circulation is absentee owned. We have a

thousand fewer owners than a few decades ago. Thirty-two

hundred weeklies, the backbone of local democracy, have dis-

appeared. One company dominates more than 3,000 weeklies.

There are only 117 cities left, in our entire nation, where com-

peting dailies still exist.

"We talk about the value of a competitive press but our

treatment of this basic commodity -- news and opinion -- denies

what we say.

"One third of all regular radio stations are interlocked with

newspapers. The bottleneck gets narrower. Four networks be-

fore the war had 95 per cent of all night-time broadcasting power.

One hundred and forty-four advertisers account for 97 per cent

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224   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

of all the network income. A dozen advertising agents create

the radio programs which bring to the networks one-half of their

income. Independent radio stations are the step-children of the

mike. In more than 100 areas the only newspaper left owns the

only radio station. What price competition!

"The weekly attendance at movies amounts to more than

100,000,000 people. But five companies control the 2,800 key

theaters of the nation. These five companies--called the Big

Five--pick up more than three-quarters of all the nickels and

dimes paid by the American movie audience for its screen enter-

tainment. All other producers of films enter the market place by

grace of these companies. We have allowed five giants to destroy

our market place of free competition for movies. Moreover, two

companies produce about 90 per cent of all our raw film stock.

"Philosophically we are still profoundly sound in our adher-

ence to the gospel of free enterprise, particularly in thought. We

must now restore our own market places of the mind, not only

for the sake of our own freedom, but also so that we can main-

tain leadership in the world-wide struggle against dictatorship

of the mind."

Every thinking newspaperman will admit with Mr. Ernst,

that American history includes this spectacle of industrial con-

centration. Nevertheless, the same progress which made instanta-

neous transmission of news and pictures possible has complicated

our living. It is costly to report and interpret it, costly to publish

it. World coverage and world interpretation take money. The

present American newspaper withal its fewer owners is a far

better bit of journalism than we had at the peak of 2,600 dailies

in 1909. The American newspaper is at its best today in ability

and completeness, in interpretive background, good taste and

mechanical excellence. Competition often induces more accurate

editing, but all the skill in the world won't keep a newspaper

publishing if the readers turn to a stronger competitor. Are not

mergers better than subsidies?

This, then, is a brief history of the newspaper. With all its

faults and failings, most historians are willing to accept it as a

reliable source book. Day by day millions of Americans read

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NEWSPAPERS AND HISTORY                 225

 

it for information, entertainment, buying direction and political

guidance. Any newspaperman who seeks to analyze the news-

paper is soon crusading for ecumenical freedom of the press and

freedom of news communications. But there is "the little more--

and how much it is!"

As an individual I have such a proprietary interest in this

first freedom. I want to go forward as an American; to have life

and have it more abundantly. Freedom of the press is my con-

tinued access to the expression of the minority not in power. It

is my freedom to talk to you, and your freedom to talk to me.

Once limitations are placed on what shall be set into type or

spoken on the air, then limitations will be put upon what one

man will say to another. It is just as simple as that.

Freedom of the press is that something for which the boys in

the fox holes were fighting. It is the right to worship the God of

our fathers. It is the effort to effect, with weapons of intellect

and weapons of information, that which the weapons of armed

force were seeking to accomplish against the enemy in time of

war.

There is "the little more" in every man's ordinary life. It

is what it means to me in the food I eat, the shoes I wear, the

air I breathe; the right I have to sing or not to sing, to read or

not to read, to listen to a political speaker or not to listen; the

right to marry and have one child or ten; the right to choose an

automobile called Chevrolet rather than one called Volkeswagon,

the right to pay much or little for it, the right to earn enough

money for my old age or to be a number on the social security

books, the right to hope that my unborn son will do things with

a mind that may spark genius thirty years from now. These,

and all the hundreds of other things that fit into men's lives, add

up to my freedom of the press.

Is it not simply the eyes and ears of the people? Does not

the constitutional privilege of newspapers live or die by the

measure of its service to them? I know that editors, reporters

and broadcasters are human, frail, somewhat erratic and credu-

lous, even as you and I. What will they do with international

freedom of communications when they get it? Will the mass of

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news be presented wisely, completely? Will it ever be physically

possible to do so? Or, will only such portions be used, as young

newsmen judge to be interesting and important?

We may suffer from their errors in judgment, their efforts

to get the story out too early and with too little thought. They

will often be wrong in their selection and treatment, but what is

the alternative to this? Without freedom of the press we pass

from liberty to slavery. We are at the mercy of the dictator, the

breeding school, the concentration camp.

With all its human shortcomings, we must rely on freedom

of the press for information and guidance; for all the truth to

mold our vision of the future, without which the people perish.

I want to protect my right to react to this as a free American,

responsible to government law, but free to choose and live my

own individual life; to carve out my own destiny. I'll have to

trust the newsman to paint the thing, as he sees it, for me. It all

adds up to democracy. My right to enjoy it is conditioned on

my willingness to fight to keep it, and to pay the price for my

first freedom.

"Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered

learning's crabbed text,

'Still there's the comment.'"

Not "Newspapers and History." This is redundant. News-

papermen and historians together interpret yesterday, for the

guidance of today, in the shaping of a better tomorrow.

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