on is the king and master of the modern
world, the Press is assuredly his faithful and most active Prime
Minister. This chief executive has extended the kingdom of his master
to the very confines of the civilized world. Nothing has contributed
more to the rule of Public Opinion than the Press. With it ideas and
opinions run through the public mind as rapidly as the dispatches that
carry them. "Mental touch is no longer bound up with physical
proximity. With the telegraph to collect and transmit the expressions
and signs of the ruling mood, and the fast mail to hurry to the eager
clutch of waiting thousands the still damp sheets of the morning daily,
remote people are brought as it were into one another's presence."
(Ross-Social Psychology.)

The ordinary man now sees the world through his newspaper. He absorbs
facts and principles with the shades and variations the daily paper
gives them. Reports of events and announcements of policies are
colored to suit the aims and opinions of the editors and proprietors.
Windy platitudes--at least for those who know facts and have studied
principles--become gospel truth for the unthinking mass. Public
Opinion is thus conscripted by an "irresponsible power." This
irresponsibility of the Press is without doubt the greatest menace of
the day. For, the opinions,--we mean to say--the propelling forces of
the silent millions are at its mercy. . . . And these silent millions
make and unmake the world.

This great power of the Press is inimical to the Catholic Church. By
press, you will readily understand, we do not mean any particular
paper, or a certain group of papers, but rather that formidable
ensemble of tremendous financial backing, of world-wide
information-services, of chains of papers that encircle the globe, of
these various agencies that tap the telegraphic wires of every country
and keep the cables hot. The Hearst papers alone reach simultaneously
four or five million readers daily. From New York to San Francisco one
man is leading the minds of these millions "to conclusions that he
wants them to arrive at"--What Hearst is for the United States, Lord
Northcliffe is for England.

This great press is against the Catholic Church. The total suppression
of truths and of facts; the conspiracy of silence--often more dangerous
than an open attack; the coloring of news with shades of thought suited
to a definite purpose; the partial admission of truth and the maimed
r