responsibilities of the
journalist of this age. In this City of Brotherly Love, with the highest
standard of average intelligence in any community of like numbers of the
world, and the only great city to be found on the continent that is
distinctively American in its policy, how sharp is the contrast between
the civilization met by the Juniata "Sentinel" fifty years ago and the
civilization that is met by the Philadelphia journalist of to-day?
Public wrongs ever appear like huge cancers on the body politic, and the
swarms of the idle and vicious, with the studied crimes of those who
would acquire wealth without earning it, are a constant menace to the
social order and the safety of person and property, and demand the
utmost vigilance on the part of the faithful public journal. Continued
political power under all parties becomes corrupt and demoralized, and
it is not uncommon for apparently reputable political leaders of all
parties and organized crime to make common cause for public plunder. The
business and social conditions are also radically changed, and with
these the fearless journalists of to-day must deal with courage and
fidelity. From what was many years ago regarded, and with some reason,
as the license of the public press, has grown up the well-defined duty
of reputable journalism to maintain with dignity and firmness its
mission as public censor, and to-day in Philadelphia, as in all the
leading centres of the country, American journalism is not only the
great educator of the people, but it is the faithful handmaid of law and
order and of public and private morals. Like all great callings, from
which even the sacredness of the pulpit is not exempt, there are those
who bring persistent dishonor upon journalism, and pervert its powers to
ambition and greed; but discounted by all its imperfections, it is
to-day the greatest of our great factors in maintaining the best
attributes of our civilization and preserving social order and the
majesty of law; and the duties of the journalist to-day in our great
cities have reached a standard of dignity and magnitude of which even
the wildest enthusiast of fifty years ago could not have dreamed.

Such is the revolution wrought in journalism within a single active
lifetime. The newspaper is no longer a luxury. From being confined to
the few, as it was half a century ago, the daily newspaper is now in
almost every home in the great States of the Union, and the grave
respon