The Press and Its Power

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THE PRESS AND ITS POWER.

We never hear an oration on that favorite topic of public speakers, the influence of the Press, without ejaculating, like Mr. Burchell in the Vicar of Wakefield, ¹ Fudge! The press has power, it is true; but only among those classes who least need its teachings. Those who are themselves really intelligent, know how to respect, as a general thing, the utterances of the newspaper press; but there is a large and numerous class, aye, the most numerous, especially in the great cities, who are utterly impervious to anything that the press may say, simply because they are beyond, or rather below, the influence of the papers they do not or cannot read.

If the Press had any power over this class, Fernando Wood² would never have been reelected Mayor of New York. Hardly a newspaper in the city advocated his election—even the News, the go-the-whole-hog organ of his party, could not stomach him, and all the intelligence and respectability of the party repudiated him. Yet he was triumphantly elected, polling nearly as many votes as all his competitors united.

The New York papers unanimously and indignantly denounced the appointment last year of a rowdy named Jim Irvin to the office of Superintendent of Public Buildings—yet all their clamor could not effect his removal. The Courier and Enquirer³ of this morning, referring to a brutal assault on a policeman, committed by this Irvin yesterday, justly asks—

And now with what semblance of reason can we expect our municipal affairs to be administered in any other than the flagitious manner in which they have been administered for some years past, when such a fellow as this Irvin can be appointed to an important office, or any office at all? In what condition is public sentiment, or what power has public sentiment to make itself felt, when such a brawling brute as this is even looked at or listened to for a moment by men of influence, except with the hope of reforming, or the intention of punishing him! And yet this creature, whose proper place is either a treadmill or a house of correction, has had, if he have not yet, a hundred-fold the influence himself, that is possessed by thousands of men whose shoes he is not fit to wipe. He breaks the laws, he affronts the common sense of decency, he tweaks justice by the nose; and yet he goes unwhipt of justice. How long is this to last? how long? He is but the representative of a class which is daily becoming more numerous and more bold in their assumptions. Where are the magistrates who will mete out justice to these men without fear or favor? If there be none among our elective judiciary who dare thus manfully absolve themselves of their duty, there are bloody days in store for us.

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