d, one another. A newspaper then takes up the notion or
the feeling which had occurred simultaneously, but singly, to each of
them. All are then immediately guided towards this beacon; and these
wandering minds, which had long sought each other in darkness, at length
meet and unite.

The newspaper brought them together, and the newspaper is still
necessary to keep them united. In order that an association amongst a
democratic people should have any power, it must be a numerous body.
The persons of whom it is composed are therefore scattered over a wide
extent, and each of them is detained in the place of his domicile by the
narrowness of his income, or by the small unremitting exertions by which
he earns it. Means then must be found to converse every day without
seeing each other, and to take steps in common without having met. Thus
hardly any democratic association can do without newspapers. There is
consequently a necessary connection between public associations
and newspapers: newspapers make associations, and associations make
newspapers; and if it has been correctly advanced that associations will
increase in number as the conditions of men become more equal, it is not
less certain that the number of newspapers increases in proportion to
that of associations. Thus it is in America that we find at the same
time the greatest number of associations and of newspapers.

This connection between the number of newspapers and that of
associations leads us to the discovery of a further connection between
the state of the periodical press and the form of the administration
in a country; and shows that the number of newspapers must diminish
or increase amongst a democratic people, in proportion as its
administration is more or less centralized. For amongst democratic
nations the exercise of local powers cannot be intrusted to the
principal members of the community as in aristocracies. Those powers
must either be abolished, or placed in the hands of very large
numbers of men, who then in fact constitute an association permanently
established by law for the purpose of administering the affairs of a
certain extent of territory; and they require a journal, to bring
to them every day, in the midst of their own minor concerns, some
intelligence of the state of their public weal. The more numerous local
powers are, the greater is the number of men in whom they are vested by
law; and as this want is hourly felt, the more profusely do