be sustained.
There are some newspapers and magazines that are honorably willing to
represent only ripe thought and unbiased judgments, but they are not in
the majority.

What verdict would the historian of the future pass upon the
civilization of to-day if he were restricted to the files of our
newspapers for his material. It must be confessed that we of to-day, in
the hurry and tension of modern life, are hardly in a better position.
Whatever we may suppose to be our attitude toward the press, with
whatever scorn we may regard its baser features, it has an effect upon
our minds far greater than we suppose. It is the steady drip of the
water upon the stone that wears it away. It is the steady presentation
of one aspect of human life, and that the lowest, that slowly jaundices
our view and that produces either a rank pessimism or else an
indignation against evil so strong as to efface judgment and to paralyze
reason. Day after day we see human nature presented in its worst aspects
and only in its worst aspects. We see fraud, cupidity, tyranny, and
violence paraded before us as being almost the only activities worth
reporting. Dishonesty is offered to us as the prevailing rule of life,
and we are asked to believe that the spirit of commercial oppression has
allied itself with the machinery of government for the oppression of a
nation. It is a dreary picture, a picture that, if faithfully drawn,
would justify almost any remedial measures within human power, a picture
that by the skill of its presentation arrests attention and almost
compels belief.

That we so seldom compare the picture with the original is one of the
anomalies of modern life. And yet the original is before us and around
us all the time, inviting us to notice that it is only the exceptional
that is reproduced with attractive skill and that it is only the
abnormal that is emphasized with adroit arrangements of line and color.
Day after day we read of the sensational divorce cases, but there is
not one line of the tens of thousands of happy marriages upon which no
cloud of discord ever falls. Day after day we read of the scandals of
municipal government, but how often do we remember the great army of
municipal officials who do their whole duty devotedly, courageously,
unselfishly? Day after day we hear of corporation tyranny, corporation
lawlessness, or corporation greed, but what recognition do we give to
corporations that obey the laws, whose operations