is the real source of the profits.
Because the solicitor seeks the advertiser, and, therefore, is in the
position of one asking for favors, he puts himself under obligations to
the advertiser, and so in his keenness to bring in revenue for his
paper, he is often tempted to ask the aid of the editor in appeasing
the advertiser. Thus the advertiser tends to control the policy of the
paper.

And this is the explanation of the condition that confronts most
publications to-day. By throwing the preponderating weight of
commercialism into the scales of production, advertising is at the
present moment by far the greatest menace to the disinterested practice
of a profession upon which the diffusion of intelligence most largely
depends. If journalism is no longer a profession, but a commercial
enterprise, it is due to the growth of advertising, and nothing else.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when journalism was on the
verge of developing a system of professional ethics, based on other
considerations than those of the cash register. Then a Greeley, Bowles,
Medill, Dana, or Raymond, with a hand-press and a printer's devil,
could start a paper as good as any university consisting of Mark
Hopkins, a student, and a log. In those days the universal question
was, "What does old Greeley have to say?" because old Greeley was the
ultimate source of his own utterances. Imagine the rage he would have
flown into if any one had dared insinuate that the advertisers dictated
a single sentence in "The Tribune"! But now the advertisers are
aggressive. They are becoming organized. They look upon the giving of
an advertisement to a publisher as something of a favor, for which they
have a right to expect additional courtesies in the news and editorial
columns.

Advertising is also responsible for the fact that our papers are no
longer organs but organizations. The individuality of the great editor,
once supreme, has become less and less a power, till finally it
vanishes into mere innocuous anonymity. To show you how far the editor
has receded into public obscurity, it is only necessary to try to
recall the portrayal of a modern editor in a recent play. Stage
lawyers, stage physicians, and stage preachers abound; when you think
of them your mind calls up a very definite image. But no one has yet
attempted to portray the typical editor, and it is doubtful if the
populace would recognize him if he were portrayed, for the modern
editor is