With all this, it is not to be denied that there are lower motives which degrade journalism. One of the chief temptations lies in the amalgamation of newspaper politics and party activities. The editor who, in the interests of public opinion, scans all the parties with a critical eye and professes to be impartial, is for this very reason the more tempted to misuse his position for private gain. He may diligently support one party in the name of impartiality and fairness, while in reality he counts on a remunerative office if that party is successful; and from this point the steps are few to the moral state of those who attack a certain party or an industrial enterprise in order to discover the error of their position on receipt of a sufficient compensation. The energy with which some newspapers stand up for certain financial interests casts grave doubt on their personal independence; and yet direct bribery plays an exceedingly small role, and the government or a foreign country is never the corrupting influence. Very much more important are the vanity and selfishness of newspaper proprietors, who for one reason or another choose to lead the public astray. But such perversities are less dangerous than one might think, for the American newspaper reader reads too much and is politically too discerning to take these newspapers at their face value. The mood induced by one paper is corrected by another; and while the journalist is tickled at his own shrewdness in writing only what his readers will like, the reader slyly preserves his self-respect and belief in his own critical ability, by hunting out everything with which he does not agree and reading that carefully. If the journal is above the party, the reader is above the journal, and thus it is that the newspapers are the most influential support of public opinion.
In this, however, they do not enjoy a monopoly; beside them are the weekly and monthly papers. Here again we shall consider their literary merits in another connection, but their greatest significance lies in their influence on public opinion. The political efforts of the weekly papers are mostly indirect; they deal primarily with practical interests, religious and social problems, and literary matters; but the serious discussions are carried on as it were against a political background which lends its peculiar hue to the whole action. The monthly magazines are somewhat more ambitious, and consider politics more directly. In their pages, not merely professional politicians, but the very ablest men of the nation, are accustomed to treat of the needs and duties of city and state; and these discussions are almost never from a one-sided point of view. A magazine like the _North American Review_ usually asks representatives of both parties to present their opinions on the same question; and a similar breadth of view is adopted by the _Atlantic Monthly_, the _Review of Reviews_, and other leading monthlies, whose great circulation and influence are hardly to be compared with similar magazines of Europe. The point of view common to all is that of a very critical public opinion, well above party politics and devoted to national reform and everything which makes for progress and enlightenment. Much the same can be said of those magazines which combine politics with literature and illustrations, such as the _Century_, _Harper’s_, _Scribner’s_, _McClure’s_, and many others. When _McClure’s Magazine_, for example, presents to its half-million readers month after month an illustrated history of the Standard Oil Trust, every page of which is an attack on secret evasions of the law, it is not serving the interests of any party, but is reading public opinion a lesson.