the character of the man who has written the
letter and the influences surrounding him; these factors must count in
any satisfactory estimate of his accuracy and truth. The newspaper must
be subjected to similar tests. For example, to test an article or public
letter written by Greeley or Godkin, the general situation, the
surrounding influences, and the individual bias must be taken into
account, and, when allowance is made for these circumstances, as well as
for the public character of the utterance, it may be used for historical
evidence. For the history of the last half of the nineteenth century
just such material--the material of the fourth estate--must be used.
Neglect of it would be like neglect of the third estate in the history
of France for the eighteenth century.

In the United States we have not, politically speaking, either the first
or second estates, but we have the third and fourth estates with an
intimate connection between the two. Lord Cromer said, when writing of
the sending of Gordon to the Soudan, "Newspaper government has certain
disadvantages;" and this he emphasized by quoting a wise remark of Sir
George Cornewall Lewis, "Anonymous authorship places the public under
the direction of guides who have no sense of personal responsibility."
Nevertheless this newspaper government must be reckoned with. The duty
of the historian is, not to decide if the newspapers are as good as they
ought to be, but to measure their influence on the present, and to
recognize their importance as an ample and contemporary record of the
past.

[45] $2,858,514, without including the pay of army officers detailed
from time to time for duty in connection with the work. Official
Records, 130, V.

SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT
DINNER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

June 26, 1901 (not delivered).

SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT
DINNER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Thanking heartily the governing boards of Harvard College for the honor
conferred upon me, I shall say, on this my first admission to the circle
of the Harvard alumni, a word on the University as it appears to one
whose work has lain outside of it. The spirit of the academy in general
and especially of this University impels men to get to the bottom of
things, to strive after exact knowledge; and this spirit permeates my
own study of history in a remarkable degree. "The first of all Gospels
is this," said Carlyle, "that a lie