Assuming journalism, equally with medicine and law, to be a profession, it is the only profession in which versatility is not a disadvantage. Specialism at the bar, or by the bedside, leads to perfection and attains results. The great doctor is the great surgeon or the great prescriptionist--he cannot be great in both--and the great lawyer is rarely great, if ever, as counselor and orator.
[Illustration: Henry Watterson--From a painting by Louis Mark in the Manhattan Club, New York]
The great editor is by no means the great writer. But he ought to be able to write and must be a judge of writing. The newspaper office is a little kingdom. The great editor needs to know and does know every range of it between the editorial room, the composing room and the pressroom. He must hold well in hand everybody and every function, having risen, as it were, step-by-step from the ground floor to the roof. He should be level-headed, yet impressionable; sympathetic, yet self-possessed; able quickly to sift, detect and discriminate; of various knowledge, experience and interest; the cackle of the adjacent barnyard the noise of the world to his eager mind and pliant ear. Nothing too small for him to tackle, nothing too great, he should keep to the middle of the road and well in rear of the moving columns; loving his art--for such it is--for art's sake; getting his sufficiency, along with its independence, in the public approval and patronage, seeking never anything further for himself. Disinterestedness being the soul of successful journalism, unselfish devotion to every noble purpose in public and private life, he should say to preferment, as to bribers, "get behind me, Satan." Whitelaw Reid, to take a ready and conspicuous example, was a great journalist, but rather early in life he abandoned journalism for office and became a figure in politics and diplomacy so that, as in the case of Franklin, whose example and footsteps in the main he followed, he will be remembered rather as the Ambassador than as the Editor.
More and more must these requirements be fulfilled by the aspiring journalist. As the world passes from the Rule of Force--force of prowess, force of habit, force of convention--to the Rule of Numbers, the daily journal is destined, if it survives as a power, to become the teacher--the very Bible--of the people. The people are already beginning to distinguish between the wholesome and the meretricious in their newspapers. Newspaper owners, likewise, are beginning to realize the value of character. Instances might be cited where the public, discerning some sinister but unseen power behind its press, has slowly yet surely withdrawn its confidence and support. However impersonal it pretends to be, with whatever of mystery it affects to envelop itself, the public insists upon some visible presence. In some States the law requires it. Thus "personal journalism" cannot be escaped, and whether the "one-man power" emanates from the Counting Room or the Editorial Room, as they are called, it must be clear and answerable, responsive to the common weal, and, above all, trustworthy.
