The first newspapers never dreamed of teaching or influencing men, but were made to collect news and entertainment and deal in them as in any other commodity.  But because this was the work of intelligence upon intelligence, and because of conditions inherent in this kind of business, it soon took higher form and service, and came into responsibilities of which, in its origin, it had taken no thought.  Wingate’s “Views and Interviews on Journalism” gives the opinions of the leading editors and publishers of fifteen years ago upon this point of newspaper motive and work.  The first notable utterance was by Mr. Whitelaw Reid, who said the idea and object of the modern daily newspaper are to collect and give news, with the promptest and best elucidation and discussion thereof, that is, the selling of these in the open market; primarily a “merchant of news.”  Substantially and distinctly the same ideas were given by William Cullen Bryant, Henry Watterson, Samuel Bowles, Charles A. Dana, Henry J. Raymond, Horace White, David G. Croly, Murat Halstead, Frederick Hudson, George William Curtis, E.L.  Godkin, Manton Marble, Parke Godwin, George W. Smalley, James Gordon Bennett and Horace Greeley.  The book is fat with discussion by these and other eminent newspaper men, as to the motives, methods and ethics of their profession, disclosing high ideals and genuine seeking of good for all the world, but the whole of it at last rests upon primary motives and controlling principles in nowise different or better or worse than those of the Produce Exchange and the dry goods district, of Wall Street and Broadway, so that, taking publications in the lump, it is neither untrue nor ungenerous, nor, when fully considered, is it surprising, to say that the world’s doing, fact and fancy are collected, reported, discussed, scandalized, condemned, commended, supported and turned back upon the world as the publisher’s merchandise.

The force and reach of this controlling motive elude the reckoning of the closest observation and ripest experience, but as somewhat measuring its strength and pervasiveness hear, and for a moment think, of these facts and figures.

The American Newspaper Directory for 1890, accepted as the standard compiler and analyst of newspaper statistics, gives as the number of regularly issued publications in the United States and territories, 17,760.  Then when we know that these have an aggregate circulation for each separate issue—­not for each week, or month, or for a year, but for each separate issue of each individual publication, a total of 41,524,000 copies—­many of them repeating themselves each day, some each alternate day, some each third day and the remainder each week, month or quarter, and that in a single year they produce 3,481,610,000 copies, knowing, though dimly realizing, this tremendous output, we have some faint impression of the numerical strength of this mighty force which holds close relation to and bears strong influence upon life, thought and work, and which, measured by its units, is as the June leaves on the trees—­in its vast aggregate almost inconceivable; a force expansive, aggressive, pervasive; going everywhere; stopping nowhere; ceasing never.