s evening the ultimate power in control of our
journals. And this as you will see implies such vital questions as: Are
we editors free to say what we believe? Do we believe what we say? Do
we fool all the people some of the time, some of the people all the
time, or only ourselves? Is advertising or circulation--profits or
popularity--our secret solicitude? Or do we follow faithfully the stern
daughter of the voice of God? In short, is journalism a profession or a
business?

There are almost as many answers to these questions as there are people
to ask them. There are those of us who jubilantly burst into poetry,
singing:--

"Here shall the press the people's rights maintain,
Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain."

On the other hand there are some of us quite ready to corroborate from
our own experience the confessions of one New York journalist who
wrote:--

There is no such thing in America as an independent press. I am
paid for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected
with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue
of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like
Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New York journalist is
to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to
fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race
for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men
behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our
possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are
intellectual prostitutes.

I come to California, therefore, to tell you with all sincerity and
candor the real conditions under which we editors do our work, and the
forces that help and hinder us in the discharge of our duties to
society and to the journals that we control or that control us.

And, first, let me give you succinctly some idea of the magnitude of
the industry that we are to discuss. The Census, in its latest bulletin
on "Printing and Publishing in the United States," truly and tritely
remarks that "Printing occupies a unique position among industries, and
in certain aspects excels all others in interest, since the printed
page has done more to advance civilization than any other human
agency."

But not only does the printing industry excel all other industries in
human interest, it excels them in the relative progress it is making.
The latest available figures, publis