hem as in any
other commodity. But because this was the work of intelligence upon
intelligence, and because of conditions inherent in this kind of
business, it soon took higher form and service, and came into
responsibilities of which, in its origin, it had taken no thought.
Wingate's "Views and Interviews on Journalism" gives the opinions of
the leading editors and publishers of fifteen years ago upon this
point of newspaper motive and work. The first notable utterance was by
Mr. Whitelaw Reid, who said the idea and object of the modern daily
newspaper are to collect and give news, with the promptest and best
elucidation and discussion thereof, that is, the selling of these in
the open market; primarily a "merchant of news." Substantially and
distinctly the same ideas were given by William Cullen Bryant, Henry
Watterson, Samuel Bowles, Charles A. Dana, Henry J. Raymond, Horace
White, David G. Croly, Murat Halstead, Frederick Hudson, George
William Curtis, E.L. Godkin, Manton Marble, Parke Godwin, George W.
Smalley, James Gordon Bennett and Horace Greeley. The book is fat with
discussion by these and other eminent newspaper men, as to the
motives, methods and ethics of their profession, disclosing high
ideals and genuine seeking of good for all the world, but the whole of
it at last rests upon primary motives and controlling principles in
nowise different or better or worse than those of the Produce Exchange
and the dry goods district, of Wall Street and Broadway, so that,
taking publications in the lump, it is neither untrue nor ungenerous,
nor, when fully considered, is it surprising, to say that the world's
doing, fact and fancy are collected, reported, discussed, scandalized,
condemned, commended, supported and turned back upon the world as the
publisher's merchandise.

The force and reach of this controlling motive elude the reckoning of
the closest observation and ripest experience, but as somewhat
measuring its strength and pervasiveness hear, and for a moment think,
of these facts and figures.

The American Newspaper Directory for 1890, accepted as the standard
compiler and analyst of newspaper statistics, gives as the number of
regularly issued publications in the United States and territories,
17,760. Then when we know that these have an aggregate circulation for
each separate issue--not for each week, or month, or for a year, but
for each separate issue of each individual publication, a total of
41,524,000