Servility of the Press

We know is no agency in the hands of the people, capable of doing such an incalculable amount of good, that has become so corrupt and time serving as the Press.

Any evil, no matter how gross, can be advocated by the Press. Any fiction however vile and debased find the Press has a ready “help-meat.” Depression, crime, intemperance and licentiousness, also in favor with the Press. If any humbug is to be palmed off upon the public, the Press is employed. If any nuisance becomes almost intolerable, the press must declare it a “public good.” If it juggler wishes to impose upon the community, the Press must herald for his superior virtues. If Quackery wishes to appear skillful, the Press must iterate the deception - if ignorance learned, a paragraph in the newspapers must introduced to the community of “men of letters” or if the innocent are to be defamed, the Press becomes an engine of malice and slander. And why is the Press thus degraded? Why has it become a cringing, fawning sycophant, ready to do the bidding of capital and become a sounding trumpet for every worthless vagabond who wishes to prey upon the People’s treasury? By observing, this question is easily answered.

The Press is used to advance private interests instead of the public good. Men like our neighbor of the Courier, publish newspapers merely “to get a living” and he who will pay the best get served the most.

If a man can make more money and receive more favors by publishing a Whig paper, he is not long in making up his mind. — “Henry Clay is the People’s choice in the pride of America, and a protective tariff is indispensably requisite to our national prosperity.” — If, on the other hand, “Democracy” holds out the most inducements - why he was “born a Democrat, nursed by a democratic mother, his grandfather died in defending democratic principles, and James K. Polk and Texas, are essential elements of our national greatness.” If the prospects for a Temperance paper look promising, he leaves the bar-room and Campaign bottles for the quill, and commences a blaze against the rumsellers, denouncing them as “demons, cut-throats” and “fit subjects for the gibbet.” Some men think Southern Slavery a national abomination because they can make money by publishing a (so-called) Anti-Slavery paper. Others that some theological doctrine is the most important subject that can engross the attention of men, because it advances his spiritual (and their temporal) good. Thus the country is filled with hypocrisy, deceit and wrong - oppression, immorality, irreligion, find many to support, because they have ample means to pay for the iniquity, while Humanity, Temprance and Christniatny have many “Judases” whose only object is the “pieces of silver.”

This state of things grows out of false industrial and social relations. Society has taken away the natural rights of man. His means to labor have become circumscribed and monopolized. The Soil, the Air, and the Water, comparatively speaking, are in the hands of a few. If he would labor, he must do it in the capacity of a tenant, servant or slave. - This has created as disrespect for agricultural industry, consequently we find our young men leaving the soil and rushing into the trades and professions. Our printing offices are overflowed with surplus help, causing many young men to embark in the enterprise of publishing a newspaper, for which they have no natural taste, and for the sentiments of which they have no sympathy, solely for the purpose of “getting a living,” thereby becoming an easy prey ot the unholy factions and designing men. The result generally is, that they soon become involved, their papers go down, and the community suffers.

Restore to men their natural rights, and by so doing, to honest labor its true dignity and just rewards and this vast evil with many others, would cease. No more public journals would be published then the good of society and the progress of science demanded. The character of the Press would become elevated, enlightened and truly free from the trammels of isolated wealth and party servility.

There would be little or no inducements for aspirants to place themselves a the head of a newspaper, to promote their selfish ambition, or zealots for the sake of notoriety, to flood the country with the windy declamations of their unsound brains. Labor being truly honored and rewarded, all would be engaged in useful industry, and instead of a Press, barking like a spaniel for the crumbs it receives, or remaining “neutral” - dumb - “all things to all men;” it would speak out freely and fearlessly the truths of human progress, human rights and human perfection and elevation.

1846.04.10