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The Newspaper, the Magazine, and the

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Public

By Richard Watson Gilder

As Interviewed by Clifton Johnson

OR seventeen years Mr. Gilder has been editor-in-chief of "The Century," a magazine that has always stood for what is best in American life, literature, and art. With his long experience and his high personal standards as an editor, it seemed to me that whatever Mr. Gilder might say on the relations of the press to its multitudinous readers would have unusual interest and weight. I wanted to discuss periodical literature in its power for good and evil. It would hardly be rash to affirm that the dailies, weeklies, and monthlies of our country wield a wider influence than the pulpit, and perhaps even than the schools; for the press is a school we all attend every day in the week from the time we learn to read to the end of our lives. What, then, are its faults and virtues, and what the responsibilities of editors and of readers in making it better?

This was the line of inquiry pursued in the talk I had with Mr. Gilder when I spent an evening with him recently at his New York home. I do not know that I had ever realized before that he had a home, it seems so natural to think of him in his more public capacity of editor-a man who, in the mystery of the "Century" quarters on Union Square, presides over the destinies of manuscripts. He lives not far distant from the offices of the magazine, on one of the side streets that open away from the busier thoroughfares, and that, by contrast, have a certain sense of seclusion. The outer aspect of a city residence is usually noncommittal, and reflects the character of the owner but slightly; and Mr. Gilder's old-fashioned brick front is much like all the others on the street. Its one point of distinction is an enormous wistaria that climbs in several strands up the front to the very top of the building, and its luxuriant greenery gives the dwelling a touch of rural retirement that is very pleasant.

room whose walls were lined with books and pictures. The evening was warm, and the windows were open. A light wind wafted in through the shutters, and the sound of footsteps and of the infrequent passing of vehicles came up to us from the street below. In what follows I report as nearly as I can Mr. Gilder's own words. He said:

"I suppose in no country are newspapers so much an integral part of the . people's life and thought as here in America. We are, as Mr. Bryce says, the great reading people of the world. You see the contrast if you go to southern Europe, for instance. There, illiteracy is common, and the people depend to a great extent on talk and local gossip for their daily enlightenment. I think we have a greater eagerness than they to know what is going on in the world; and this eagerness is coming to be as characteristic of the women as of the men. Women have the reputation of caring only for the gossip and lighter news of the papers, and the bargain advertisements; but there is a large and growing class of women to whom social movements, civic matters, and all public affairs have a very great interest.

"All our city people read at least a morning and an evening paper, and very many read more. In times of excitement there's no measuring a person's capacity for absorbing newspapers. During the war you'd see men go along the streets gathering newspapers as they would currants off a bush. A man would buy several to start with and walk along reading them, and every few blocks he'd buy a new edition just out with the latest.

"There has been a great change in journalism since I began to earn my living in Newark as a reporter on a daily paper. I did police reports and all that sort of thing, and gradually worked up to be managing editor, and, on another paper, part owner, so that I knew the journalism of While we talked we sat in an upstairs those days pretty thoroughly. There has

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MR. GILDER'S OFFICE AT THE 'CENTURY MAGAZINE

From a photograph taken for The Outlook by Clifton Johnson.

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been a vast transformation, not only in the introduction of pictures in the daily press, but in the way the papers are managed all through, and in the immensely in creased cost of the management. Nor are readers what they were. Then, men and women were common who swore by one paper, and they'd no more think of taking some other paper of a different stripe of politics than they would of drinking milk on lobster. Now a man takes this or that paper because it happens to be convenient or cheap; and maybe because there is no one paper he thoroughly trusts to do his thinking, as used to be the case. That a paper supports a political faith opposed to his own doesn't count with the modern reader. Where a man takes more than one paper he is apt to buy those of different politics purposely in order the better to get the drift of things, or simply to enjoy the thrust and parry.

"The editorial opinion on political movements as expressed in the papers doesn't have the weight with readers it once did. Journalism's greatest power to-day lies in the dissemination of fact rather than in the advocacy of policy. I don't mean to imply that the editorial page has not great influence, but only that this influence seems to be less marked than formerly. We go to the newspapers because they give facts or alleged facts, and an alert modern newspaper does not let its politics greatly injure its news. It gives both sides, and, indeed, prides itself on the impartiality of its reports. You can thus draw your own conclusions independent of editorial opinion if you choose.

"To men in office the attitude of the press is now and always has been a matter of considerable concern; not that they care very much what any particular editor thinks, but because of the controlling relation that public opinion is understood to exert over the public press. The papers reflect with more or less accuracy the way the people are thinking, and for this reason most of the politicians and officials in general watch them very closely. Some public men keep scrap-books of newspaper clippings. But, whether they preserve a record or not, the trend of popular opinion is a matter of keenest interest to all of them.

"There are statesmen, however, who seem to get more in touch with the people

through their private correspondence than in any other way. Letters have weight with a.. our officials, from the humblest to the highest. Even if you write to the President of the United States, your letter has attention. He may never see it, but some one reads it and it is at least counted. It is the same with letters sent to Congressmen. Either personally or through his secretary a Congressman knows the contents of all the letters he receives. If the secretary says, Here are two letters giving you particular fits,' the Congressman wants to know whom they are from and where they are from.

"He thinks that, while he has heard from only two men, as many thousands may hold the same opinions, but haven't taken the trouble to write; and such letters have a decided influence on his course. In the same way, editors and publishers are a good deal concerned about the letters written them by their readers. A newspaper both creates public opinion and is largely regulated by it. The papers, of course, want to be popular-want to sell; and there's nothing a publisher is more sensitive to than the criticisms of readers. If the day's mail brings three fault-finding letters, it makes the publisher nervous. It's not just those three writers that he cares about, but he is fearful that they represent the opinions of a small army of readers.

The enormous appetite the public has for periodical literature seems astonishing, but it is perfectly natural. One of the strongest traits in the human mind is curiosity. We wake up in the morning. and we are curious to know what has happened the day before. The newspaper habit is the result of our attitude of inquiry toward all mankind; it is just the same as is expressed in the words with which we greet a friend- How do you do?' 'How goes it?' How are all the folks?' 'What's the news down your way?' Buying a newspaper is our method of taking the world by the hand and saying, How goes it? That greeting is extended through the newspaper to our neighbors, to our home country, and to all nations; we say, 'How do you do?' to President McKinley and to Queen Victoria and to all the other powers and personages. If anything has happened to them, the paper informs us about it. If we don't find

Queen Victoria and this or that one actually mentioned, we know just as well that they are all right.

"Curiosity accounts in large measure for our love of literature, for our love of news, for our love of life. A great many extraordinary careers, both of men and women, have their springs in curiosity. They want to see life and experience life in all its phases. You know how the Rough Riders came to New York on their return from Cuba. To begin with, they were gathered into a godly refuge on the East Side; and no doubt they were decorous enough while there, but it was far from satisfying their curiosity as to metropolitan life. They were no sooner let loose than they said, 'Now, boys, let's see the town' and they saw it.

"Yes, curiosity is a great power; and one of its gratifications is the daily press, and another is the weekly press, and still another is the monthly magazine. But people draw the line at quarterlies in this country. Curiosity gets to be too attenuated to span a three months' interval.

"Art in the daily papers has been greatly improved since it was first introduced. The caricatures are often excellent. So, too, are many of the drawings from photographs. Really, art in the newspapers is frequently better than it is in some of the magazines-that is, such magazines as confine their illustrations to ordinary photographs which they preserve with all their defects by a cheap reproductive process. I think there is to be a great reaction soon in public taste that people will tire of photographic reproduction, and that those magazines will find most favor which lead in original art. The tendency will be to raise up real illustrators, of whom there is a lack in America now. We have many bright young men drawing magazine pictures, but the results are too often like easel pictures and without illustrative vitality. It seems, almost, as if the artists knew too much, as if they were too highly trained academically, or else it is that they are unable to forget that training. They think of the effects of light and shade, and forget character and expression. What did Cruikshank and Du Maurier think about while they were drawing? Surely, not simply of light and shade and the effects studied in ateliers.

"In criticising the prevalence of the photograph in our periodicals I would not say that its influence on art has been wholly bad. It has had a corrective effect in a certain way, and has made illustrators truer to fact; but at the same time it has made them more prosaic. However, a change is coming. The illustrator of the future is not going merely to pose a young man and a young woman gracefully in a north light' and call it a proposal scene. The demand will be for artists who can forget the academic requirements and give us two lovers who are alive in their relation to each other. The misfit' joke picture cannot stay in competition with real illustration.

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"The aspect in which the daily press has changed most within my recollection is in its development of sensationalism. This sensational wave, which started in its most violent form in the West, has now swept across the country from ocean to ocean. But the new journalism is not without its good points. Along with all the sensationalism, the lack of responsibility, the getting together of fake news and the contriving of evident pictorial falsehoods, a great deal of talent goes into the make-up of the papers. The editorial pages, especially, contain a remarkable amount of expert and expressive writing. I think a most deplorable thing about the present conditions of journalism is that young men fresh from college, who go to work on these sensational papers attracted by the high pay, suffer degeneration in character under pressure to produce what is demanded by cynical employers. They are soon doing things that before this they would believe themselves incapable of.

"Yet, with all its faults, the press, even the sensational press, has certain generous qualities that make it ready to facilitate any disinterested work taken up by publicspirited members of the community. The greatest service the press does for civilization is in the searchlight it throws on the dark places. Before there were any health laws in this city there was a tenement-house owned by a prominent member of a popular church, from which came a large number of typhus patients. Many of them died. Appeals to the tenement-house owner were unavailing, and the only way found to compel this man to stop murdering people, clean his house,

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and put it in shape to live in was the threat of publicity. He resisted all argument until Mr. Bryant threatened to publish his name and the condition of his house in the 'Evening Post.' That humbled the man at once, and he said, I'll do anything you want if you'll keep the matter quiet.' I confess I am a little disappointed with the present searchlight service of the newspapers in connection with our present city government. But if some opportunities are being lost, it will not be for long. "One of the best tests you can find of the moral caliber of a periodical is in the character of its advertising. By the sense of responsibility shown in the advertisements admitted you may not be able to discern the religious denomination, but you can gauge correctly the moral grade of the proprietorship.

"That the public mind is vulgarized by the swash served in the sensational papers is certain, and it is to be hoped that there will soon be a reaction. Just what degree of excellence in journalism the public are prepared for is a question. It is perhaps not to be expected that people without culture will show fine taste and discrimination, but at the same time we know very well that some of the best literature has the widest circulation. One would think this evidence that there is opportunity for the best in newspapers. The discouraging thing is that so many members of the more intelligent portion of the community will buy the very papers abuse and despise, and will read them they whether they believe what they read or not. They get to craving news, and lots of it, and unconsciously look for something put out with a bang. There is so much criticism that one would think there would be more selection, but people have the notion that a one-cent crime is no sin.

"Readers ought to realize that they themselves are largely responsible for the sensationalism of the daily papers. They can't put all the blame on the speculative proprietors with their rotary presses and cheap processes. If readers are self-indulgent and willing to gratify curiosity by patronizing and helping support a trashy publication, the moral responsibility rests on them as well as on the owners. Publishers will furnish better papers if readers refuse to buy poor ones. We need not carry the sense of responsibility to the point of morbidness, but we should feel it and act accordingly.

"All this applies to magazines as forcibly as to newspapers. The sphere of the magazine and the sphere of the newspaper overlap, but it is all journalism. The difference is mainly that the magazine, as a rule, gives literature and art prepared with more deliberation and with greater authority. As for sensationalism, you find it in monthlies as well as in dailies, though so far the magazines have shown more restraint than the newspapers. Yet that there are differences in ethical and literary and artistic standards in magazines, as in all other classes of periodicals, is very apparent. The public has a duty of selection here, of course, as well as with the daily press.

"There is one thing that one does not hear so much about now as formerlynamely, the suppression of genius. There are so many periodicals that it would be difficult for any one of them to suppress any given new genius.' He or she is not only sure of getting a hearing, but of getting a printing. The editor, therefore, is no longer the terrible being who decides fates. This is well, for I suspect he never quite deserved his fame as a distributor of literary destinies."

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