ditions of
its own country. It grew out of nothing, and, let us hope, it will soon
disappear into nothingness. The real Press of America was rather red
than yellow. It had an energy and a character which still exist in some
more reputable sheets, and which are the direct antithesis of Yellow
sensationalism. The horsewhip and revolver were as necessary to its
conduct as the pen and inkpot. If the editors of an older and wiser time
insulted their enemies, they were ready to defend themselves, like men.
They did not eavesdrop and betray. They would have scorned to reveal the
secrets of private citizens, even though they did not refrain their hand
from their rivals. Yet, with all their brutality, they were brave and
honourable, and you cannot justly measure the degradation of the Yellow
Press unless you cast your mind a little further back and contemplate
the achievement of another generation.

The tradition of journalism came to America from England. 'The Sun,'
'The Tribune,' and 'The Post,' as wise and trustworthy papers as may be
found on the surface of the globe, are still conscious of their origin,
though they possess added virtues of their own. 'The New York Herald,'
as conducted by James Gordon Bennett the First, modelled its scurrilous
energy upon the Press of our eighteenth century. The influence of Junius
and the pamphleteers was discernible in its columns, and many of
its articles might have been signed by Wilkes himself. But there was
something in 'The Herald' which you would seek in vain in Perry's
'Morning Chronicle,' say, or 'The North Briton,' and that was the
free-and-easy style of the backwoods. Gordon Bennett grasped as well
as any one the value of news. He boarded vessels far out at sea that he
might forestall his rivals. In some respects he was as "yellow" as his
successor, whose great exploit of employing a man convicted of murder
to report the trial of a murderer is not likely to be forgotten. On the
other hand, he set before New York the history of Europe and of European
thought with appreciation and exactitude. He knew the theatre of England
and France more intimately than most of his contemporaries, and he did a
great deal to encourage the art of acting in his own country. Above all
things he was a fighter, both with pen and fist. He had something of
the spirit which in-spired the old mining-camp. "We never saw the man we
feared," he once said, "nor the woman we had not some liking for." That
healt